Alan Pally and Christine Karatnytsky

00:12 Hello, I'm Christine caird mitski. I'm the script librarian in the Billy Rose Theater division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. I'm 48 years old. Today is May 22nd 2009. I'm in the storycorps booth and Dam Rush Park in Lincoln Center, New York, New York, and I'm here with my colleague Allentown Lee and we're about to do an interview to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Lincoln Center.

00:44 My name is Alan Pally. I'm 60 today's date is May 22nd 2009 and where at Lincoln Center I'm with my colleague Christine card nycki. I've produced public programs lectures performances at the library at Lincoln Center for many decades.

01:02 So Allen

01:04 We're sitting in.

01:06 Public space and we're both from New York. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what it was like to grow up in New York. Well, quintessential New Yorker. I don't even drive and I don't slip I don't swim very well either I grew up. I was born in Manhattan grew up in the Bronx went to Public Schools. The city has changed a lot but it's still a wonderful place and dumb and I love it and my parents were born here as well.

01:44 I studied although my background is Jewish mostly secular Jewish. I studied theology at Fordham University in the Bronx with Jesuits. And I found that a very enriching experience part of my growth as well. And I remember when Lincoln Center was built. I was a teenager and I came to work here. I guess only 7 years after it opened. It opened in 65 then time. I've seen it change over the decades in many ways, but you had started working for the library before the performance Performing Arts Library was built at Lincoln Center. So tell me a little about how you came to work for New York public or when I was

02:30 Teenager that was said I was going to I started college and I needed a job at least a part-time job. And in those days there was a big campaign on the subway is particularly big posters, which said I got my job through the New York time. I remember that ad campaign people doing something interesting in the want ads for the New York Times and found out that the New York Public Library was hiring pages. And so I pop down to the personnel office, which was then in the

03:06 Building at 5th Avenue at 42nd street and they hired me for the grand salary of a dollar sixty an hour 20 hours a week and sent me up to Donnell where I was a page for 7 months. What did Pages do in those days at Darnell? Well, mostly we put books on shelves when they were returned. But we also did some other jobs related to discard send if we were very good and touch all tall are books. We could do something called Crossing off transaction cards back in the days before computers the way the library new weather people return books. You need to cross off these little numbers on these vast sheets of number so I can check in card. So when is Pretty Little colored card so when you cross up somebody's number it meant that they return the book and I wouldn't get a notice. Okay, so you worked.

04:06 Anywhere else before you came to Lincoln Center, then I became a part-time clerk at Central circulation, which is was a big central bank branch at 42nd Street. It's now the park house for rent out for Grand Affairs and I worked, you know, registering people checking out books taking returns working on overdues. Then I became I went the full time for a while and I became a technical assistant to the Science and Technology division in that building overlooking the 42nd Street entrance. We had a little balcony and I remember in the late 60s was the time of Vietnam War the Etten on War and the Hare Krishna people passing by at lunch time and the big and toward demonstrations in Bryant Park, so we could look out and see doctor Spock and Peter Paul and Mary Angela. I'm so can people like that then I went I wanted to finish school full-time again.

05:06 I went to work halftime at the Yorkville branch on East 79th Street, which was really lovely place in still a big Eastern European Community. They are so wonderful restaurants with your no sadly gone Hungarian austrian-german check and they're all gone now working for the library when our Union was founded local 1930 which represents Library staff. Were you involved with the founding of the local know? I wasn't because I think the founding took place while I was still a paid but I did join when I could which I believe was when I became Clerk and then I actually became an officer of the Union from 1970 to 76 was the Secretary of the Union.

06:06 King for the library we had that connection and we would talk about Labor issues fairly early on but let's talk about Lincoln Center since this is where we are tell me about how you came to work here and what your work has been here while I was parked time when I came to work. I got a promotion and came over from the Yorkville branch and I was basically the house manager for the free programs which we presented and I assisted the director of the library and his assistant on variety of projects came in the summer of 72 and you know, I work with the public agenda printed programs and I remember really being excited by the fact that I saw a connection between my study of history of religion and the free performances we gave for number of ways.

07:02 Yeah, you know I remember again when I first joined the staff that you and I would have conversations from time to time about your religious studies in connection with the work you did. I remember you relating making those relationships even then, but tell me who was it that you worked for specific Doctor Robert Henderson, who was the director of the general Library Museum and his assistant who's who was John canale? Bob was a film scholar and in fact wrote two books about DW Griffith still having the library. I did not know that and as part of the Lincoln Center 50th celebration, I believe we're showing a film he made about the library in the 60s in the late sixties that song to you on the schedule of events. Very nice. I didn't know that terrific. So what were the public programs like in the early days when you were assisting they were free program?

08:02 The library has a very long tradition of presenting free programs in all of its branches the ones that the Performing Arts Library focus on Performing Arts. We reflect the collections through the programs in those days the although they were free. They weren't necessarily professional. They were good people who wanted to come and do free programs that might have been academics who once studied music for instance or lawyers, even the audience. Lots of people came from the audience and I remember once on a Saturday afternoon a man came every Saturday afternoon from the synagogue up the street a man named David and I remember saying to him. I didn't know you could come to a performance on the Sabbath and he said what we do on the Sabbath is supposed to give us a foretaste of paradise. So that's what I like to think.

09:02 Job is at the library and at Lincoln Center would give people a foretaste of whatever Paradise his way of looking at it. Tell me about some of the performances that have brought Paradise to us. Well or have attempted when I became producer in in 1990 or something like that. I change the focus. I continue the tradition of free programs, but I also felt that they should be professional meaning we should encourage great artists to come and present programs for free and that we should tell them what we wanted them to do relative to the collection sometimes cuz I always tell anybody if you have a space you can do anything but to bring it one step closer and related to our subjects and our collections was important to me and I remember we got the Lillian.

10:01 Papers what you remember as well as I do and I fought looking at the collection with a thousands of letters and scripts and all that material that you could create programs out of the letters all those letters from John gielgud to Lillian Gish. And so we got a lot of her friends and did a series based on her collection. We got great theater actresses like Irene Neuwirth and Julie Harris and venerable figures such as Douglas Fairbanks Jr. And the week created quite an interesting series which Incorporated materials from the collection and John gielgud wrote something specially for us and they were all free and we did some screenings as well as the public response for example to the Lillian Gish program. Well, it was very positive and we did go on the radio. We went on the lopate show to talk about it, and we got a lot of publicity and

11:02 We really got a lot of positive feedback and very big audiences right now. Another specialty. I know you have involves performances of musicians. Particularly. Those are among the Lincoln Center constituency. Can you talk about that a little yes, we do. We regularly ask musicians to perform works for which we have the composer's manuscript the holograph as we call it the manuscript in the composer's hand and we have for instance. Ask James Levine twice to conduct works for which we have the manuscripts one was ionization by Perez and the other was the ballet mecanique of Georgia and very nice very nice. Excellent reviews in the New York Times for those performance and they were big elaborate performances which required a lot of percussion several pianos in some cases and

12:02 Get focused though on our manuscript. So what we were doing was we would taking the composer's manuscript and creating a new Performance Based on it and then recording it and it which in turn the recording becomes a item in the library. So I should have continued the tradition of the work another style of performance or area of performance that I know you have focused on in your producing life are examples from various National cultures. You have shown dance from various countries, for example, and other performances like that exhibiting the best of perhaps a folk culture or any other aspect of a national identity. Would you talk about those performances a little first big series I did was performing arts of Asia festival and we reached out to

13:02 All the communities in New York and two people visiting and we presented over May and June which which I believe was Asian month a commemorative month. We presented dance music and theater reflecting the cultures of Asia. And when I say Asia, I mean as many countries as we could be is real in Japan places people didn't even realize it was exciting and people thought I did it because I wanted to reflect the changing nature of Asian communities in New York, which I did because when I was growing up there both communities didn't exist here is also based in college in that unit the religion of different cultures and then we went on to

13:56 Produce the largest polish Performing Arts Festival that ever took place in this country, which I had the pleasure of being given an award by the Polish government. Yes. I saw that in your office. Yeah, you know, I went to Poland to put that together. They did a Romanian Festival Norwegian Mexican at each of these in some way reflected on the collection or added to it through gifts from the people from a broad and they were quite enjoyable to put together and I still I'm in touch with many of the people from those festivals all that's very nice. That's very nice. If you had to pick a personal favorite, what would be your favorite program that you've produced will there would be difficult but I work for a few years with the British playwright Alan Bennett who was maybe my favorite playwright and I would visit him in London in his house in Camden town.

14:57 And we'd talk about creating a program which featured scenes from his plays reading of scenes from his plays which would be introduced by him and set into contact. We did that with Michael frayn and I was particularly came to do it with Alan Bennett and especially since his place are considered to British for the American audience and he even felt that but I didn't I said it New Yorker and American I thought they really speak to us and so he did come here and we got some really great actors Eileen Atkins Phil Bosco Richard Easton Robert Sean Leonard and the Christine Ebersole and as always these people donated their time and we did a really wonderful program with Alan in these actors and scenes from his plays which of course we videotaped and it's now part of libraries theater on film and Tape Project.

15:57 They were quite wonderful. So tell me a little bit about your thoughts of you know, what's happening physically to the Lincoln Center complex. Do you like the changes? Do you like the renovation? Well so far I do. I just want to go back to my first day at Lincoln Center in 1972. Okay, and it was a very hot day and the flag on the Plaza was at half-mast recently announced a new artistic director of the Metropolitan Opera would be a man. I believe a Swede named girl on kantola probably pronounce here on Han Solo and he had just been killed in an automobile accident in Sardinia. Just just prior to his coming to take over at the Metropolitan Opera. So it was quite a sad time and on my first I was at

16:57 Taken by my boss to to the Met to meet the acting director who was a man named Skyler Chapin who later became the head of the convince the city Arts Council and I've seen Lincoln Center change a lot over the years and how you asked about the renovation has not that I live in the neighborhood. I'm particularly happy to see 65th Street Brighton. Because it was a very dead Street reminiscent of streets. I saw in Eastern Europe and that is the biggest change that I've seen so far, of course A lot of it is still in progress and we're looking forward to the final results, but the renovation of 65th Street versus a great civica uplift as far as I can tell I agree. It's wonderful to have that bright space opened up again. I quite like the

17:57 Innovation my cell phone though. I missed Henry Moore sculpture, and I look forward to half of having that returned. I said was going to be put back but who knows I think so. I don't know. Can I tell you about my first day here? Well, my first day at Lincoln Center was as an intern. I was a library student at St. John's University in Queens, and I didn't want to write a thesis and in at that time in library school. We were students were given an option. We could write a thesis or doing internship and one in one of the dusty files at St. John's division of Library Science office. I found a brochure one of the old style brochures from the library and I wrote to Dorothy's word love and I was accepted as an intern and my first day I walked

18:56 With my little skirt and blouse in high heels and the only thing I could think of I mean in the mist of my eye was quaking with excitement, but the only thing I could think of when I saw the fountain and I approached the plaza was zero mostel and Gene Wilder cavorting on the fountain in the producers, you know, which was shot in New York. And of course this is the producers that was done many many decades before the Broadway show, but when I walked up onto Lincoln Center and saw this Fountain and imagine Gene Wilder and zero mostel leaping around the fountain and then I went upstairs to discover that we had the mustell papers in the collection. So I had arrived, you know, Timmy and Paradise. So it was a tremendously exciting place. It was your first job with the library.

19:56 After my internship was over there was a brief, you know, pause while I finished Library school and there was room in the budget to hire me as John fowles assistant. He was the Scripps library and in charge of various other things in the collection the catalog and so on and so I was lucky enough to come to work here and it's it's been my only job for 25 years. So it's it's quite remarkable. What is the things we were talking about yesterday when we put our heads together about coming here was how the neighborhood has changed. So I'd like to ask you about you know, the neighborhood and of course, it's it's it's known and notoriously that Lincoln Center the building of Lincoln Center displaced middle class housing in

20:56 Neighborhood and there was quite a controversy about that. But after the the deed was done there was still neighborhood businesses and and so on and one of the places we talked about or two of the places where the Footlights cafeteria and Pat's which was a famous bar that many staff would go to after work. So don't tell me about what your Recollections of the of the neighborhood in and what's the different than and things like that quite a lot is different and the neighborhood was in fact a working-class neighborhood for Lincoln Center was built and when I first came here in 72, there was still a lot of affordable places to dine including the footlight cafeteria, which I believe was Lincoln's had his own cafeteria. And that's something I sort of lament the passing of these affordable places and I was at the Martin CEO

21:56 Awards which is a wonderful Lincoln Center event sitting next to a hundred Mirabelli a former vice president of Lincoln Center, then still a vice president and the renovation was just coming in to be yes, and I said to Andre, you know, I miss the Footlights cafeteria, which was closed in the late seventies. Why don't you bring back something like that? And he said I sign the paper to close it all my goodness. So it's really, you know, one like the South Bank in London and many other similar places. That's one thing we lack of affordable dining Pat's. What's a wonderful neighborhood bar with had the best hamburgers in town was located was the Footlights cafeteria was located on the north side of 65th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam and I believe it was slightly underground and it was quite fast and affordable.

22:57 And it's after it was removed that space became the offices for Lincoln Center Incorporated which previously I believe had been at 1865 Broadway in the building the Bible building and it was it was really a wonderful place for the community and four people couldn't afford the Posh restaurants that started to to appear on the corner of Amsterdam and 67th Street believe. I remember we went there for lunch actually went quite a lot even though the library in those days had its own little lunch room with cooking with someone to cook for us, but Pat's was really wonderful Old Neighborhood Place. I think I think they even have a bad a bookie out of

23:57 But as a sign of the time a sign of the change even if Pat's was I used to get soup a lot and I would say to the daytime waitress Mary what kind of soup if you got today and Mary would say I've got lima bean and lentil take the lima bean and don't ask questions and then marry retired and I waitress a younger waitress named Jenny came this just before shortly before the end of Pat's and she would say for instance. I would say what kind of soup do you have in she would say? Well we have lima bean and lentil and I would say which is better and she would say how the hell should I know which is better and I would say but Mary used to it and she would say Wednesday married.

24:43 She had her own charm, but the the affordability of it the fact that they love the staff of the library particularly. The owner's wife was the evening waitress and Saturday waitress. Her name was Jenny Jenny patalano kind of pets with short for patalano and all the stagehands would go there and it's really a place which we all miss those of us of a certain age if it's feeling out of its affordability.

25:20 Well, there was there was more coffee shops that were fordable. There was some that was some early salad bars with your good that I no longer here. It is really healthy food places yesterday Amsterdam Broadway. We had quite a choice. Now, of course, we have the cafeteria at Juilliard which I've quite like and that's for all the staff and that's a very good thing. So we're lucky to have that but if a casual lunch, you can't really go to any of these places unless you want to eat a lot and spend a lot of money. I remember when I first started working at the library. I remember the mailman that we had who would deliver mail Maurice Avenue and you know, he was an old

26:20 Why you no real New York character and one day he said to me when we were in front of the Woolworths on Amsterdam Avenue that used to have a lunch counter. Remember any said if I wasn't a married man, I'd invite you out for a cup of coffee the most wonderful pick-up line ever heard. I remember I used to go there occasionally song about yeah. Yeah.

27:00 Other things, you know his sort of slipped away and I don't I don't quite remember anymore. But let's talk about the library a little bit more any interaction of the between the library and Lincoln Center. How do you feel about the libraries places a constituent of Lincoln Center? Well, I think it's wonderful that we're here. We're in some ways where we have dual citizenship because we're very much part of the New York Public Library System, but we're also part of Lincoln Center physically. I don't believe we're what is called a corporate constituent the blank and sorry. Yeah. I think you're quite right. I'm on the Lincoln Center educational Council. So every month other month, I get to talk to the education directors with about educational programs and things like that, but we do

27:50 Bring the the subjects that you know, we do bring the collections which preserve the traditions of all of the people who perform at Lincoln Center and it's just a perfect place for us. I know the library opened on November 30th 1965 and there's no other place where we could be Unilock brought together the Performing Arts collections from various other other libraries. Is there a particular performer or mean a memorable performance from Lincoln Center that you think is particularly well reflected in our collections in the library.

28:30 Well, not what we you know, where are collections do go they take the theater on film and tape and The Dance Collection to videotape many of the performances at Lincoln Center theater in New York City Ballet and these not reside in our Collections. And of course, we have the audio from the Metropolitan Opera broadcast side. So we are a world organization in the way that even our beloved Neighbors at Lincoln Center may not be but we're also a local organization always feel that we serve the people across the street and person across the world and through the internet. That's that makes it easier.

29:14 You know, we're at a painful point of transition in the library in terms of local politics Mayor Bloomberg is about to release his City budget and I know you and I have talked about this in there is a good potential. Although it's not the jury is still out on whether or not there will be layoffs in the library. How do you see what's happening with the city affecting the library here at Lincoln Center in 1975 during a very bad budget crisis. We did have some layoffs and it was very sad time and this seems like it has the potential to be even worse not just because of the layoffs, but because the changing nature of of information delivery and Library service

30:10 Makes makes it look worse even I think I think I don't know if I'm making myself clear has been the tradition of Library servicing in your view being available as many hours as possible of Staff giving in-depth service in many cases to the to the public and you know the internet just as created a database so that

30:38 People don't come in in the numbers that they used to in some of the research can be done remotely. Some research can be done remotely, but we're still an archive many of our divisions are world-class archives. Yes, they are and I don't know that numbers of people coming in as a way to judge them.

30:59 Yes, I think you quite right so one. What are the changes that you see happening?

31:06 Well

31:09 How do you mean in terms of layoffs or in terms of the changing nature of the changing nature of sharing information or providing Public Service? I mean, do you see the library in the next 5 to 10 years? How will I you know, we produced the first webcast stuff up of a library program and presented seminars for cultural institutions in the 90s has to use the internet would be right but there is still no replacement for coming into the building people still take things out people still want to see the manuscript in the hand of Beethoven that we have and they still need to see the archival collections. So I think we're a long way from from

32:04 The time when people won't need to come in, I don't know if that will ever happen. I agree with you. I think that's stripped which you've taken care of over the years or such an important part of it. We use them for programs at Lincoln Center theater sometimes request copies, and I think that will always be a place.

32:30 44 Libras and Performing Arts. I was because we make the point of the set that we're living, you know, we're living Library. We're always creating something out of the collections or somebody is I always felt lucky to be working on the scripts actually because it was a way to document culture that wasn't funneled through more mainstream collection development practices. The way the manuscripts were are required has been directly from the play Ryan and we reach out to writers who are at the start of their career who are are just getting plays produced and we are able then to establish a relationship with them that facilitates. Not only their feeling of being part of a world-class library and a world-class.

33:30 Theater library but it is stablish has the potential for their archive coming to the library at some point in the future depending on what happens with their career. So I've always felt that that the the script collection has been important for that reason and also because you know, we tend to go after we are interested in collecting wise in you know Off Broadway material scripts that reflect the theater experiences of minority cultures gay and lesbian various ethnic groups ethnic minorities in the city all kinds of issues that might not make it to Broadway as worthwhile as the performances often are and is of high quality as they are on Broadway.

34:30 So, you know what it's like to produce a work and it's tremendously expensive. So Off Broadway has been a crucial part of collecting at the library Rod blade L told me that last year there were almost 1,500 Off Broadway Productions. And that's part of what we document. He probably goes to all of them picked up the script which I found particularly important and I learned this one. I did some Tennessee Williams programming with Kim Hunter original Blanche in streetcar and with cherry Jones and with Tennessee's agent and that is an alarm this with your debt collection as well that we have many versions of script so we can present scenes from different versions and you can see how the playwright evolved when they get Senator did awake and sing. They wanted to see the original awake and sing manuscript in our odette's

35:30 A purse which has never been published and has another name with the permission of your debts of State office Lee. They can use the various script and create the the performance that they want to create as opposed to just using the published the drafts and and watching the creative process evolve through the manuscript. So, how should we wrap up Alan wood. Would you like to say to finish up? Well, I remember the bicentennial year. I remember all of them.

36:13 You know the landmark historical events through reflected through Lincoln Center and the library. What was the Vietnam War? I was working at 42nd Street with the bicentennial when Queen Elizabeth came to Lincoln Center and we saw her on the Plaza and when her son came prince Andrew Duke of York to Rio Pinar Bruno Walter Auditorium a month after 9/11 after I renovation and spoke very movingly about going on with life in October 2001 and continuing to go to cultural institutions and coming to libraries. I'll actually put that clip.

36:57 On our website recent that we got permission from the Queen's press secretary to to put the Dukes remarks on our website and that's another way. We're getting our

37:10 I work out to the world, but I just look forward to the changing of Lincoln Center. The want one change that I haven't been that happy with is some as a native New Yorker cool of London particularly has said I believe New York doesn't have enough open plazas and the truth the trend to fill every empty space is not something that I like and nowadays in the summer or even not in the summer, you know every weekend there might be a craft fairs on Lincoln Center Plaza or or dance events, and these are nice things on their own, but I just

37:56 Love the Lincoln Center Plaza as a space for people to sit in to walk around and into chat just like the great squares of Europe and I would like to see them less compared to feel less compelled to put even the most worthy stuff in in in the space. One of the best times to be here. Maybe you'll agree with me is so late at night after a performance when the plaza is empty and you can simply stroll through the quiet buildings and the relatively empty Plaza. Although there are always always seem to be people around strolling but I think that's when time of day or night when it captures that feeling but I think you like an open shared space respecting it.

38:56 Yeah, and I did a few programs without the Lawrence who wrote West Side Story and when you look at our photos from West Side Story, you see on the garbage cans in the set designs Westside addresses. This is the neighborhood that took place and I think there is a continuity between all of us who who grown up in New York and the people who live here now in the people to come so I don't think that the culture has stopped the Westside culture stopped one Lincoln Center was built. I think we embody at 4 week should be trying to embody it and to move it forward for the work we do at Lincoln Center and I think the renovation and the celebration of the 50th anniversary is respectful of that and I'm looking forward to being part of it as a Brooklyn kid to a bronx kid and your colleague in the New York Public Library. It's been

39:55 It's been wonderful to work with you and to be your colleague for so many years, and I really appreciated the opportunity to do this interview with you. Will thank you. It was a pleasure for me as well and particularly because it was you. Thank you.