About the West Initiative

Designing a more welcoming Lincoln Center

With 16.3 acres, Lincoln Center’s campus is home to 11 performing arts and arts education nonprofits. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) maintains and manages the operations of the campus as an artistic and civic cornerstone of New York City. For those approaching from the Amsterdam Avenue side, the view of Lincoln Center is far less inviting than from the Columbus Avenue side, with little direct access to the campus.

We want Lincoln Center to be welcoming to everyone—for events and performances and in everyday life. This initiative is a continuation of past renovations that opened up the campus and our outdoor spaces. Following this redesign, Damrosch Park and the western edge of the campus will better serve community members, audiences, and artists.

Vision, Purpose, and Goals

Legacies of San Juan Hill

The campus was originally developed as part of an “urban renewal” project in the 1950s that razed San Juan Hill, part of historic Lincoln Square, which was a culturally diverse, densely populated, and largely working-class community. In the first half of the twentieth century, it was also a lively cultural center, full of theaters, movie houses, dance halls, schools, and other artist spaces that nurtured luminaries in ragtime, stride, jazz, bebop, mambo and other Afro-Caribbean forms, visual arts, musical theater, and more. To honor the communities of that neighborhood, LCPA has invested in several major projects that shine a light on this important history and celebrate its significant cultural impact. These include the Legacies of San Juan Hill digital hub, in collaboration with the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College (CENTRO) and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, as well as a series of events and exhibits that engage with this history from a multitude of perspectives.

The digital hub features archival images, articles, videos, playlists, and more from a range of contributing artists, historians, journalists, and community members. It is a resource that will grow over time.

This initiative is a continuation of Lincoln Center’s commitment to uplifting the arts in New York City, actioning bold projects across the campus—including the expansion of free artistic programs, designing and implementing a new Choose-What-You-Pay ticketing model, the reopening of a newly redesigned David Geffen Hall, and working with partners across the city to host blood drives, food banks, graduations, naturalization ceremonies, and more—that marry artistic work and civic service, all with a commitment to expanding access to the arts.

The Planning Process

Since summer 2023, we’ve had approximately 6,200 touchpoints with neighbors, advocates, community groups, elected officials, civic leaders, and other members of the New York City community, who have shared their ideas and feedback through interactive events, in-person and online surveys, community artmaking, interviews, and focus groups. The project team gathered input from community members and stakeholders regarding their current use of Lincoln Center’s spaces, the challenges they face when accessing and navigating the campus, and ideas for improvements. The community's input has been integral in the design of the new Damrosch Park.

A New West Side

Sharing inspiration and joy of the arts to more New Yorkers

The new design of the Amsterdam Avenue side of Lincoln Center responds to local communities’ desire to have a series of transition spaces from the street into Lincoln Center’s iconic campus—extending greater welcome along the western side of the performing arts center, while creating a more usable and inviting public park and performance venues that better meet the needs of artists and audiences today.

Opening up to Amsterdam Avenue

Creating an open and welcoming west side entrance

The new streetscape and garden entrances eliminate the visual and physical barrier wall at Damrosch Park to create a more welcoming edge to the campus. It has been designed to better serve Lincoln Center's close neighbors, including residents of New York City Housing Authority campuses at Amsterdam Houses and Addition, and students of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and the five high schools at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Educational Complex.

By removing the wall at Damrosch Park and replacing it with inviting, human-scaled spaces, the design, developed with input from NYC Parks, improves pedestrian circulation and prioritizes places for community use and relaxation. The design also seamlessly connects to the rest of the campus, including Josie Robertson Plaza, bringing the park to the street and introducing greater access and works of art in the park.

Amsterdam Avenue Before and After

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Left: Current view from Amsterdam Avenue. Photo by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Right: View from Amsterdam Avenue looking into Damrosch Park; visible is new streetscape. Rendering by Brooklyn Digital Foundry.

Amsterdam Avenue & 65th Street Before and After

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Left: Current view from Amsterdam Avenue and 65th Street looking at New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and entrance to Lincoln Center at street level. Photo by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Right: View of SE corner Amsterdam Avenue and 65th Street looking at New York Public Library for the Performing Arts with seating area and mirror façade. Rendering by Brooklyn Digital Foundry.

Drawing inspiration from Lincoln Center’s Modernist architecture and landscape architecture, the design acknowledges the original campus’ symmetrical layout and formal edges by retaining a strong central axis and formal entry points, while introducing and sensitively integrating contemporary elements that accommodate accessibility and flexibility of use and support a variety of programmatic needs. The new design also incorporates materials, textures, colors and scale of design elements found across the rest of Lincoln Center to create cohesion across campus. Features of the reimagined entrances to the campus include:

“The new design for Damrosch Park will repair what for so long has been one of the great failures of Lincoln Center, the cold shoulder it turns toward its neighbors to the west, replacing an uninviting open space with a vibrant new park gracefully connected to its surroundings,” said Paul Goldberger, architectural scholar and historian. “More remarkable still, the design does not compromise Lincoln Center’s original architecture, but reinforces it.”

Community Park Spaces

Making a more dynamic public space

The project introduces new community spaces centered around a water feature and expansive lawn space, surrounded by benches and movable chairs. Many of the geometries in the new park echo historic geometries. For instance, the new lawn evokes the shape and scale of the Bandshell, but re-interprets it as a space for community activity rather than a physical barrier.

Throughout the participatory planning process, community members shared their desire for the spaces adjacent to Amsterdam Avenue to be flexible, graceful, and human-scaled. New Yorkers from around the neighborhood and the city at-large also felt strongly that the park should prioritize greenery, a water feature, increased shade and sustainability—including 50% more trees than currently exist in the park. Features of the community spaces include:

Performance Stage and Plaza

Building a world-class amphitheater for NYC

In community workshops, participants emphasized the importance of maintaining the park’s primary and historic use as a performance park. The new performance venue—which includes a permanent theater structure and an inviting, open plaza for audience seating of up to approx. 2,000—responds to this interest by creating an improved, world class performance park to meet artistic and community needs.

The location and design of the new performance venue maintains the historic vista from Josie Robertson Plaza with a gridded veil of trees. The venue realizes the original intent of a theater in a park, by surrounding the new architecture with a veil of trees.

Performance Stage and Plaza Before and After

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Left: Current view of plaza in front of Bandshell, looking west towards NYCHA Amsterdam Houses. Photo by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Right: View of amphitheater and audience area during performance looking southeast towards 62nd Street. Rendering by Brooklyn Digital Foundry.

The new size, orientation, and design of the stage, along with technological and infrastructural improvements, will greatly improve the artist and audience experience in Damrosch Park and will mitigate sound impact outside the venue as it welcomes dance, theater, and music from around the world.

Damrosch Park has been a critical space for free, non-ticket holding public access since its inception. But, for the majority of the year, the predominantly hardscape space is severed and cut off from the contiguous community and unusable as a park. This design will allow for more of the park to be used year-round, as the permanent venue will not require significant build-outs before and after each performance season. The configuration of the stage and its seating frame a plaza that also supports a variety of events and flexible uses. When not used for performances, the performance area can also serve as a recreation destination.

Theater features include:

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A New West Side

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About the West Initiative

Designing a more welcoming Lincoln Center

Area of Study

Vision, Purpose, and Goals

Legacies of San Juan Hill

The Planning Process

A New West Side

Sharing inspiration and joy of the arts to more New Yorkers

Opening up to Amsterdam Avenue

Amsterdam Avenue Before and After

Amsterdam Avenue & 65th Street Before and After

Community Park Spaces

Performance Stage and Plaza

Performance Stage and Plaza Before and After

Get Involved