The Theater: Money for the Muses

Dollar by dollar, Manhattan’s grandiose, slow-moving, multi-mused Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts inches closer to completion. On the drawing boards since 1956, the project, which eventually will become a six-building headquarters for the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera and other highbrow projects, has had to squirm past hassles with disgruntled tenants and will not be completed before 1963.

Last week two whopping gifts brought the center a trombone-length nearer reality. From Socialite Art Patron Mrs. Vivian Allen (daughter of Department-Store Tycoon Joseph Shoenberg, one of the founders of the May Co.) came $3,000,000, to be used on a 1,200-seat repertory theater. For the general fund covering construction expenses, one member of the Philharmonic’s board of directors anonymously kicked in $500,000. Total gifts so far: $28,550,000, largely from the Ford, Rockefeller and Avalon Foundations. Still needed: $46,450,000.