A Stage Busting

Arlene Shuler, Ray Lamontagne, Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Member Daniel Garodonick

A "Demoliton Party" at New York City Center had guests in hard hats, cocktails in hand, as the midtown theater's chief executive, Arlene Shuler, recalled her first time on the stage. "I was 13 when I danced here as Clara with the New York City Ballet," she said. Now it was time to take take the stage apart. Shuler watched as Mayor Bloomberg and a few others wielded sledgehammers for what the chairman of City Center, Ray Lamontagne, called a "stage busting." Over the summer, a sprung floor will be installed, which is scheduled to be broken in on opening night of Fall for Dance, featuring Merce Cunningham Dance Company among others. This improvement is part of a $75 million renovation that will make the theater "more comfortable, functional, and inviting," said Shuler. The city has put up $35.6 million for the project. Mayor Bloomberg said his Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, Kate Levin, "started working me over about how we have to support this a while ago." The economic downturn did not stop him. "If you go back and look, all of the great investments in New York were made in tough times," he noted.