A Space Once ‘Dark and Dank’ Celebrates Its Millionth Visitor

Ángel Franco/The New York Times The pianist Emanuel Ax congratulated Gail Donovan of Massachusetts on Friday after she became the one millionth visitor to enter an atrium that Lincoln Center took over about three years ago.

The scene unfolded like the opening moments of the old quiz show “This Is Your Life,” which sprang a jaw-dropping surprise on someone who did not see it coming.

Gail Donovan of Brookline, Mass., was rushing to buy tickets to a Mostly Mozart concert with the pianist Emanuel Ax when officials from Lincoln Center sprang the surprise: She was the one millionth person to cross the threshold since Lincoln Center took over an atrium in a nearby apartment building three years ago.

Waiting to give her a boxful of prizes was Mr. Ax himself.

“I am not dressed for this,” declared Ms. Donovan, in flip-flops, slacks and a striped top.

It was another moment in the unlikely transformation of the atrium, a public space that features a media wall and a 42-foot-wide video screen. The atrium is T-shaped, with a crossbar stretching from Broadway to Columbus Avenue and a stem leading to West 62nd Street. It was built in the late 1970s under a city program that gave developers incentives like extra floor space if they included accessible public spaces.

The president of Lincoln Center, Reynold Levy, said that it used to be “dark and dank and leaking.” That was before Lincoln Center arranged a 99-year lease â€" but after the atrium (and the apartment building above it) had survived the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s, when more than 100 apartments in the building were taken over by the Colorado-based Silverado Banking, Savings and Loan Association. Neil Bush, a son of President George Bush and a brother of President George W. Bush, was a director of Silverado; the bank’s collapse cost taxpayers $1 billion.

Fast-forward to Friday morning, when Ms. Donovan arrived, looking for the box office that sells same-day discount tickets.

Judith Pohlman, a volunteer who works at the Lincoln Center information desk in the atrium, had two handheld counters â€" one yellow, the other blue. She clicked the yellow one each time someone walked in. The blue one was to count queries at the desk.

When the yellow counter rolled over, from a string of 9s to a string of 0s, she gave the signal, and the officials swooped down on Ms. Donovan as the millionth visitor. (The count began in December 2009.)

What happened next was like the bonus round on “Wheel of Fortune,” where Pat Sajak leads the contestant to a mark on the floor. There were little marks on the floor where Ms. Donovan, Mr. Ax and Mr. Levy were to stand facing a video camera that Lincoln Center had set up to record the moment. Mr. Ax had a handheld microphone and chatted up Ms. Donovan with the smoothness of a game-show pro.

“I’m overwhelmed,” said Ms. Donovan, who moved to the Boston area several years ago after working with New Visions for Public Schools, a nonprofit group that helps train teachers in New York City. She is now the director of a similar organization in Massachusetts, the Turnaround Leadership Academy, and said she was visiting Manhattan “for a rest” after an intensive four-week session for prospective principals.

Mr. Ax talked about the atrium. “It used to have a climbing wall, which is why I never walked through here,” he joked. Now the atrium is officially known as the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, for the financier David M. Rubenstein, who donated $10 million to a campaign that, among other things, paid for a redesign of the atrium.

Mr. Levy, the Lincoln Center president, said he set his sights on the atrium “the moment I arrived at Lincoln Center â€" I mean, the moment I arrived.”

“My reaction was, What is this? What is this space?” he recalled. “It’s across the street from the largest and most consequential performing arts space in the world, and with major developments and transformations under way, how can we account for this despondent, depressed space?”

He saw it as a gateway to make Lincoln Center more approachable and easier to navigate, and he had had experience with atriums. As an official at AT&T in the 1980s, he was assigned to deal with the atrium in the company’s office tower at 550 Madison Avenue (now the Sony Building).

Gale A. Brewer, a City Councilwoman whose district includes Lincoln Center, said she had championed the center’s takeover of the space and was a regular at free performances at the atrium.

Lincoln Center pays no rent, Mr. Levy said, but took on the responsibility of operating and maintaining it, according to city rules â€" adding $2 million a year in expenses. “We just absorbed that” into Lincoln Center’s budget, he said.

Mr. Ax gave Ms. Donovan the box with the prizes, tickets to a year’s worth of performances â€" but not the Mostly Mozart concert she wanted to attend.

“I hope it’s not sold out,” she said.

Mr. Levy said not to worry. He would get her in.