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Nutcracked

Power Pas de Deux: City Ballet Director Peter Martins vs. Anne Bass; Socialite Withdraws Her Fund-Raising After ProtĂ©gĂ© Incident; Says Seething Hoosier: NYCB ‘Feels Irrelevant to Me Now’

 

By Jason Horowitz

On Sept. 30, powerful socialite and benefactress Anne Bass ended one of the city cultural elite’s oldest pas de deux when she resigned from the board of the School of American Ballet after 25 years.

 
The school, founded by George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein to train Americans in Balanchine’s muscular, daring and revolutionary form of classical dance, and which later gave rise to the New York City Ballet, the resident dance company of Lincoln Center, had been directed since 1983 by the dashing and tempestuous playboy, Peter Martins.
 
And finally, it is Mr. Martins—and his leadership of the school and the company—that she blames for her exit.
 
“For me, [the New York City Ballet] feels irrelevant now,” Ms. Bass told The Observer. “It seemed like such an integral part of life years ago.”
 
In her resignation letter, she was more specific.
 
“Over the past few years, my escalating concerns over serious issues of governance made it impossible for me to continue,” she began. “I am no longer willing to support an institution that increasingly bears so little resemblance to the one that George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein bequeathed to their successors, and to which I have been committed for over twenty years since my Chairmanship of the 50th Anniversary campaign in 1984.”
 
The signs were already there: The ex-wife of Fort Worth billionaire Sid Richardson Bass, who had given at least $5 million to the school in the course of her decades on the board, had retracted a $1 million donation in January that was earmarked for a new studio, prompting a Page Six item speculating about her commitment to the organization.
 
Her criticism of the dance company and the administration at the school, Mr. Martins’ supporters say, reflects that of a handful of disgruntled former board members, including Ms. Bass and a former president of the school, Suzanne Davidson, who was ousted in 2003.
 
In her resignation letter, Ms. Bass accused Mr. Martins of denying Ms. Davidson a fair review back then.
 
 
She also charged that he used students at the school as pawns in his battles with board members who challenged his authority. One dancer that Ms. Bass sponsored to attend the school “suffered cruel and excessive punishment at the hands of the Chairman of the Faculty (Peter Martins) shortly before the end of the school year,” she wrote in the letter.
 
Mr. Martins’ personal assistant, Deborah Koolish, said that he was unavailable for comment.
 
Marcia Thompson, a school-board member who has been supportive of Mr. Martins, dismissed the Bass-Martins division as typical of things in the high-powered Lincoln Center offshoot.
 
“There are always people coming and going off the board,” said Ms. Thompson. “There were artistic differences as well as administrative differences. There is always discord.”
 
And so, strangely, the difficulty between Anne Bass and Peter Martins—the benefactor and the ballet master—seems archetypal for the school’s board, on which Chelsea Clinton, Wendy Wasserstein and Coco Kopelman also presently serve. Many of the board members present at the spirited and often spiteful meetings of 2003 said they reflected little more than an ugly family spat, a rough patch on the way to greener pastures. The school’s financial health is robust, they said, and none of the boardroom politics ever spilled over into the classrooms.
 
“There was certainly a tension in the institution,” said Peter Boal, a former principal in the company and a star teacher at the school, who recently left to take a job as director of the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle.
 
“Emotions were running high at different times,” said Jeffrey Middleton, the school’s resident pianist, who nevertheless insisted that the staff and students were unaffected. “That was a complicated matter. Everybody had their own viewpoint.”
 
They still do.
 
New York Observer  

 

Mayor Bloomberg's 2006 Inaugural Address


“Happy New Year. Feliz nuevo.

“Governor Pataki, Mayors Koch, Dinkins and Giuliani, Comptroller Thompson, Public Advocate Gotbaum, thank you for being here.

“And thanks to all of New York’s distinguished public servants. Today I want to especially salute those who are leaving office: Borough President C. Virginia Fields, Council Speaker Gifford Miller, Councilwomen Tracy Boyland, Margarita Lopez, Eva Moskowitz, and Madeline Provenzano, and Councilmen Allan Jennings, Bill Perkins, and Philip Reed.

“And I want to say to the public servants taking their places how much I look forward to working with all of you.

“And, finally, I want to thank everyone here.

Gracias a todos, from every borough and every community, for coming together on this wonderful day -- a day full of great promise for our great City.

“Over the past four years, I’ve met and talked with New Yorkers who practice every religion, speak every language, and come from everywhere on Earth. It’s been the experience of a lifetime, not only because of the generous warmth -- and advice -- you’ve given me, but also because you’ve shared with me your deepest hopes and dreams.

“It’s the enormous power of those dreams, over eight million of them, that gives our city its unique optimism, what one author described as: ‘that sense -- so peculiar to New York -- that something extraordinary would happen any minute, any day, any month.’

“Possibility, Opportunity: This is the essence of New York. This is the air we breathe. This is the promise of tomorrow.

“But let us not forget, on Inauguration Day four years ago, that optimism seemed in jeopardy.

“The terrible devastation we had suffered only months before remained uppermost in our minds. From this very spot, we saw plumes of smoke still rising into the January chill from the World Trade Center site. We were a city in mourning, shaken and wounded.

“Accepting the enormous responsibility entrusted in me, I asked New Yorkers that day to keep faith in our common destiny, to think big, dream big, and prepare to build an even greater city.

“And because we did, today we are stronger than ever.

“True, the wounds we have suffered may never fully heal, but something else has endured. Something even more compelling; something even more powerful: our unity.

“On 9/11, New Yorkers came together. And since 9/11, we have stayed together.

“We’ve been united through blizzards and a blackout, and, most recently, we’ve overcome a transit strike that could well have shut down our city. We have accepted the risks and requirements of the post-9/11 world without abandoning our devotion to our liberties, our zest for life, or our feisty charm.

“United in the face of terrorism, New Yorkers have embraced the timeless wisdom that the secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom is courage.

“Over the past four years, we’ve learned -- or re-learned -- that in this, the most diverse of cities, we are one people, with one common destiny. That same spirit of unity must continue to guide us now.

“We have gone through the tough times, and come out stronger.

“Our population is at an all-time high. Crime is going down; student achievement is going up; jobs are being created; new homes and parks are strengthening and revitalizing our neighborhoods.

“We’ve come a long way, and now we have a choice to make.

“We could be content with what we have accomplished, and preserve our gains, or we can take our beloved city even further forward -- and make the promise of opportunity real for every person in every community.

“No one need ask which one we’ll choose.

“We are New Yorkers!

“We never stop reaching, striving, and working. We know there is more we can do, and more we must do. We know there can be no turning back. And there will be no holding back.

“United, we will take on new challenges -- with the passion and dedication that New York demands of us. United, we will succeed.

“Think about what we have accomplished in the last four years.

“Against all odds, we’ve made the safest big city in the nation even safer, for motorists and pedestrians on our streets, from fires in our homes -- at the tragic cost of six of our Bravests’ lives -- and dramatically safer from crime in each of our five boroughs.

“Now, staying united will make us even safer.

“Our most urgent challenge is ending the threat of guns and the violence they do. Twice in recent weeks, police officers have been struck down by gunfire on our streets. Twice the flags flying on this plaza have been lowered to half-staff, and the sound of pipes and drums has escorted brave and decent young men on their final journeys.

“Detectives Dillon Stewart and Daniel Enchautegui were among twelve of New York City’s Finest who gave their lives in the line of duty during the last four years.

“Now we have a duty as well, one that rises above all partisan politics, and one we will pursue relentlessly: And that is to rid our streets of guns, and punish all those who possess and traffic in these instruments of death.

“This is a national threat -- one that crosses city lines and state boundaries.

“To meet it, we must, and we will, make common cause with our fellow Americans.

“We will take our message to Albany, to Washington, and to every capital of every state that permits guns to flow freely across its borders.

“And to those who distort our laws to aid and abet hardened criminals, know this: We will not rest until we secure all of the tools we need to protect New Yorkers from the scourge of illegal guns.

“Public safety is the foundation of our city’s prosperity.

“Without it, our quality of life, our economy, our efforts to reform the schools would surely falter.

“Ensuring our safety has paved the way to taking on the other challenges we’ve faced.

“Working together, we’ve overcome the worst fiscal crisis in a generation. It threatened our quality of life and jeopardized our future. Courageously, together we made a fundamental choice to face up to the crisis, and master it -- and not postpone and evade, thereby repeating the mistakes of the 1970s.

“And because that was the right choice, we’ve done more with less, and today our quality of life is better and New Yorkers are living longer.

“Staying united, we will be fiscally responsible.

“This is not the time to relax our vigilance, or to make the wrong choice of shifting our financial burdens onto the shoulders of our children.

“City government can and must live within its means. And we will do so without abandoning the compassion that defines our city. We will care for the elderly, the homeless, and all those in need.

“City government must also be the catalyst of opportunity in all five boroughs.

“Private enterprise, not make-work public programs, always will account for New York's prosperity.

“The public sector’s role is to create the conditions that foster private investment. That is why, from West Harlem to Jamaica, and from Hunts Point to Coney Island, we are replacing long twilights of blight and abandonment with the bright dawn of new parks, new homes, and new hope.

“Staying united, we will transform the face of our city.

“We will protect and improve our open spaces. We’ll revitalize our incomparable waterfront. We’ll begin to turn what was once the world’s biggest landfill into the City’s largest new park in more than 100 years.

“We’ll pursue the most ambitious affordable housing initiative in New York’s history. We’ll encourage development where it’s needed, and curb it where it’s not.

“And we’ll quicken the pace of rebuilding here in Lower Manhattan, creating a sustainable residential and commercial community.

“By giving New York a genuine 21st century downtown, we’ll ensure that this -- our historic birthplace -- once again captures the imagination and admiration of people around the globe.

“Four years ago, our City was caught in a deep national recession, and our economy was hemorrhaging jobs. Because we’ve stimulated growth in all five boroughs, today, by contrast, our economy is once again moving forward.

“But for too many in our city, opportunity is still elusive.

“And so long as that is true, this will not be the New York that we want it to be.

“Staying united, we will create more jobs for all New Yorkers.

“Over the next four years, we will aggressively foster small business start-ups and expansion, and promote our growth industries -- from tourism, to the arts, to the life sciences.

“And because the best anti-poverty program ever devised is a job, we’ll also step up our efforts to move thousands more New Yorkers from the dependency of welfare to the dignity of work.

“Over the past four years, we’ve also started to fulfill our most important obligation: to our children.

“To give them the future they deserve, we’ve established accountability and set standards in our public schools.

“We’ve brought a sense of excitement and possibility to teachers, to parents, and to children. We’ve given the schools an arts curriculum that is worthy of the nation’s cultural capital. We’ve begun to ensure all our students the first-rate education that is their fundamental civil right.

“That is the hinge on which the future of our city will turn.

“Staying united -- for our children’s sake -- we can and we will lead our schools forward.

“We will lock in, and extend, all our hard-won reforms.

“We will not permit anyone to turn back the clock!

“Our mission over the next four years will be: To create -- from pre-school through high school -- a public education system second to none.

“We will strengthen the three pillars of our school reform: Leadership, Accountability, and Empowerment, putting resources and authority where they belong: in the schools of our city.

“And because the eyes of the nation are on our efforts, our successes hold the promise of hope for schools across the land.

“What a wonderful gift for New York to share with the rest of our country.

“We in this City can accomplish all these goals and more, but only if we continue to stay above narrow partisan politics.

“Over the past four years, New Yorkers have shown that we can solve any problem when we set our self-interest aside, and put our common interests first. Government must embody that spirit.

“We must make our political process more open and accountable, the operations of government agencies more transparent, and our methods of appointing and electing our judges above reproach.

“On Inauguration Day in 2002, I pledged to govern our city without partisanship or prejudice.

“I meant it then -- and I’m renewing that commitment today.

“The door to this great building will remain open to all New Yorkers, wherever they’re from, whatever they believe, whomever they love.

“Over the past four years, we’ve given New Yorkers a City government of independence and integrity.

“That will continue. We will not compromise our principles. We will not sidestep the hard choices. And we will always do what we believe is right for the people of New York.

“Forty years ago, New York -- as it’s done for countless others -- opened its arms and took me in.

“And during the past four years, I’ve had the chance to fall in love with this City all over again. I’ve learned even more what connects all of us to New York so deeply, what draws us here from every corner of the globe, and what keeps us here -- generation after generation.

“It’s possibility. It’s opportunity. It’s ambitions as bold as seeing your name in lights on Broadway, and as simple and universal as creating a good home and a better life for your children.

“That’s what New York City is all about.

“Our job, yours and mine, is to give every single New Yorker the chance to realize those ambitions and pursue those dreams.

“Four years ago, I spoke of building a better New York. And I can tell you exactly who is building it.

“It’s the couple who has just made the down payment on their first home in Cypress Hills. It’s the second-grader with a newfound love of reading, checking a book out of the Harlem Branch Library. It’s the returning veteran in Sunset Park who’s ready to exchange a helmet for a hard hat, and the shopkeepers on Fordham Road whose hard work and long hours are a labor of love for their families.

“You are the people who truly make this the place where ‘something extraordinary happens, any minute, any day, any month.’

“You are making this a better City for all of us. You are the promise of New York, and we believe in your dreams.

“The challenges we confront are not easy, nor will they be the last ones New Yorkers ever face.

“After all, it was O. Henry who once wrote that, ‘New York will be a great place -- if they ever finish it.’

“But over the next four years, we will neither turn back, nor hold back.

“Staying united, we will renew the promise of our city -- and commit ourselves to finishing our unfinished work, making Our City even greater and a true City of Opportunity for all of us here today, and for our children and our children’s children.

“Thank you, and may God bless New York City.”

Comptroller William Thompson Jr. 2006 Inaugural Address


Mayor Bloomberg, Public Advocate Gotbaum, Members of the City Council, colleagues in government, family, friends, and all New Yorkers, good afternoon.

It has been my great privilege to serve as New York City Comptroller for the past four years and I am deeply honored to serve a second term. And I would like to thank the people of New York City for this tremendous opportunity.

Four years ago, we gathered here under very different circumstances. Only a few months after the destruction of the World Trade Center , a deep uncertainty was heavy upon us -- our confidence shaken, our future in doubt.

Not only were we struggling to come to terms with the painful loss of family, friends and colleagues, we were confronting a bleak economic picture that threatened to take us back down the road of financial disaster we had traveled a generation before.

Remarkably, the leaders standing before you then, myself included, were new and untried in elective office. The eyes of the City -- indeed the eyes of the Nation and the World -- were upon us. But we did not shrink from the task. Staring into uncertainty can make some feeble: to New Yorkers, staring down uncertainty is what makes us strong.

This type of strength is what our City was founded upon. Long before Lady Liberty took up residence in our Harbor, New York City was a beacon to all people around the globe seeking to escape persecution and hardship. They showed the strength of their convictions and helped New York City become a symbol of freedom, a symbol of new beginnings, a symbol of rebirth.

The events of 9/11 tried to dim our beacon's light, but as it has so often in the past, our City showed its resilience and we emerged stronger and more secure. Today, our light burns brighter than ever.

I am proud to say that we faced the uncertainty and we prevailed. In fact, after a considerable period of economic decline, we have entered a period of fiscal stability and our economy has begun to rebound.

Yes, we are all proud that the City has bounced back more quickly than anyone anticipated, but in the wake of that recovery, there are still many New Yorkers who continue to struggle…who have not shared in this prosperity.

It is our responsibility as public officials to find ways to sow the seeds of opportunity, to foster hope for a better future for all New Yorkers. The challenges we face are enormous and it is not a time for partisanship. Collaboration was and still is the key ingredient for our future success.

I entered office determined to be an activist Comptroller, by aggressively using the powers of my office to find new, creative ways to save the taxpayers money and to put our resources to work for all New Yorkers.

With the unwavering focus of the dedicated staff of the Comptroller's office, we did this in a variety of ways. To name a few…We identified more than 170 million dollars in savings through our audits of city operations. We made innovative uses of technology, including an initiative to settle claims against the City electronically, and we found new ways to do business.

Taking advantage of New York's untapped fiscal strength, we collaborated with the Mayor, the New York City Finance Commissioner and the New York State Banking Commissioner to use over one hundred million dollars of City deposits as a capital base for expanding the Banking Development District program, spurring the creation of local bank branches in neighborhoods that have traditionally been excluded from access to capital.

Together with my committed colleagues on the New York City Pension Funds, we began to invest in real estate, specifically, New York City commercial real estate. Our pension funds now own part of several New York City landmark buildings. This investment is a true testament to our belief in the long term viability of this great City.

We have also invested our pension funds in the rehabilitation and creation of housing for our City's low-, moderate- and middle- income residents…nearly one billion dollars invested to spur economic growth and opportunity. And we developed innovative programs to include more women, African-American and Latino investment firms in the management of City pension dollars.

The list is expansive, and the focus clear…we have used our Office to help the beacon burn even brighter for all. Every New Yorker deserves their fair share of our economic recovery.

In the coming term, we will continue the work we have begun --- using City resources to benefit the people we serve: creating jobs, expanding access to capital, building affordable housing, and improving government.

We will ensure that the innovative Battery Park City Housing Trust Fund we established with Mayor Bloomberg and housing advocates honors the decades old commitment to create affordable housing units, helping thousands of hardworking New Yorkers and their families to live in our City without having to choose between paying rent or putting food on the table.

We will commit additional dollars to more bank branches in order to reach more neighborhoods. There is no better investment we can make than the investment we make in our communities.

We will continue to aggressively pursue contractors who exploit workers, many of whom are immigrants, insisting that the working men and women of our City are paid a fair day's wage for a day's work on any City public works project.

We will continue to lead the fight against companies that exploit children, discriminate against workers, do business in countries that support terrorism, and poison the environment, carrying on a long tradition of New York City Comptrollers who have helped us earn our reputation as the most aggressive pension funds in the nation.

I was born and raised in New York City . I have had the chance to get to know the many communities across the City in my career, and yet in the last four years, as I have met and worked with individuals and groups in every neighborhood, in every borough, I have seen a City stronger and more unified than ever before.

We are one City and we stand united no matter the challenge.

It is this commitment to each other that helps New York to continually reinvent itself and maintain its position as the greatest City in this Nation. Our City's legacy is and will remain one of opportunity, one of hope.

New Yorkers are survivors, yes—but we are more than that. Those who were born here, those who were raised here, those who come here from all over the world, are here, not just to succeed, but to excel.

There is a spirit in New York that is truly inspiring... a spirit that lifts its leaders to want more for the people they serve.

the years ahead, I will build on my achievements, deriving strength from this spirit. I will continue to fight for fairness and opportunity for all New Yorkers and to use the power of my office to keep our City strong.

Our city is, and must remain…a beacon for those who hope... a compassionate home for the vulnerable…and a place where every single New Yorker has the means to realize their dreams and aspirations.

Thank you.

 



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