Lincoln Center needs to renovate Avery Fisher Hall. To raise the necessary funds, it needs a gift that would normally entail “renaming the building.” But the heirs of Avery Fisher (of Fisher Electronics fame, among other things) aren’t comfortable with that, so Lincoln Center paid 15 million to compensate them for their loss, contingent on some donor ponying up the necessary funds, plus 15 million…
Geffen is even insisting that his name remain on the building long after he’s dead and couldn’t care one way or the other. He says that his insistence on perpetuity is “appropriate”—but perpetuities are never appropriate.
So, in a couple of decades, when wooing another large donor, Lincoln center will be repurchasing the naming rights from Geffen’s descendants. So much for learning your lesson, Lincoln Center…
