In Friday’s (7/10) New York Times, Randy Kennedy writes that the late Wade Thompson devoted “a sizable amount of his fortune to reviving [Manhattan’s] grand but crumbling Park Avenue Armory, at 66th Street, which has transformed itself into a hangar-size stage for art, music and performance.” Among the orchestras to perform at the Armory are the New York Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic. “The Thompson Family Foundation, which Mr. Thompson began in the late 1980s, has decided to add to the largess and is giving the armory $65 million, which will be used to create an endowment for arts programming and educational initiatives.… All of its art and performance spaces will now be known collectively as the Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory…. The gift means that Mr. Thompson or his foundation has now given more than $125 million to the armory.… ‘We’re seeing artists who are becoming increasingly ambitious, partly because I think they can see the possibilities here. And this is going to allow us to be able to plan confidently into the future,’ ” said Armory President and Executive Producer Rebecca Robertson.
Posted July 13, 2015
