IRONDALE ENSEMBLE PROJECTNEWSNEWS Spring 2002 Volume 5 No. 2 Defining Heroes RROCKEFELLER CCENTER By Josh Bacher By Jim Niesen What is a hero? For some, it is an historical figure. The inspiration for Rockefeller Center most For others, it is a fictional character from a legend or a likely originated with Samuel Insull’s Civic Opera House story. Some people will tell you that a hero is ham, turkey in Chicago. Insull intended to use the Lyric Opera and salami between two slices of French bread. Webster’s Company to anchor a giant office building just west of definition of a hero reads, “A person of distinguished the city’s Loop. Like Rockefeller Center, the building was courage or ability, admired for their brave deeds and noble poorly located in an out-of-the-way area poorly served qualities.” Sports figures, movie stars, scientists, by mass transit. When the Depression hit, Insull’s politicians, or just the average Joe can all fit this building went into receivership and Insull himself went description. For the past few months in rehearsal, the into hiding in Turkey. company has been trying to come up with its own definition Rockefeller’s advisors began to show interest in of a hero. And then we have been trying to agree on a converting Columbia’s midtown slum properties into person that fits that definition all the time. We have yet to office buildings anchored by an opera house in late reach a conclusion, and who knows if we will. 1927, just after Insull announced the Chicago project. One of our biggest arguments was about Babe Certainly the “Opera Square” as it was original- Ruth. For some in the company, he is a huge hero. For ly called did not grow out of any family love for opera. others, Babe’s accomplishments in baseball were not John D. Junior never attended the Metropolitan Opera, enough. Why should an excellent baseball player be nor did his sons. Their idea was that the prestige of the deemed a hero? And even if a being an excellent baseball Met could somehow be made to rub off on office and player could make one a hero, why him? Were there not commercial tenants, making leases more valuable. other ballplayers that were arguably just as good? What is Ivy Lee, John D. Junior’s long-time aide, created it that makes The Babe stand head and shoulders above what was to become the modern public relations business the rest? What is it that makes anyone a hero? when he was hired by the Rockefellers to stem public Certainly Charles Lindbergh was considered a outrage following the massacre of Colorado Fuel and Iron hero after he was the first to fly solo non-stop over the workers and their families at the Rockefeller family’s Atlantic. Yet if he didn’t do it, someone else would have Ludlow mines. He explained to Rockefeller the way it and Lindbergh would have remained just another obscure would work. individual. This, of course, was not Lindbergh’s fate, and “The plan is that half way between Fifth and he was instantly recognized by the world as a hero. The Sixth Avenues, a square area shall be cut out between world forgot the numerous people who died attempting the 49th and 50th Streets . .The idea is that the new Opera Josh Bacher as Charles Lindbergh, Jack Lush as John Dillinger very same feat which Lindbergh accomplished. He was a and Sven Miller as Diego Rivera (Photo by Gerry Goodstein) House will stand between this square and Sixth Avenue hero for surviving; others become heroes for dying. The and that facing the square on the other three sides shall firefighters and policemen of 9/11 became heroes for giv- character he did, where would America be today? be buildings developed on land owned by Columbia ing up their lives in order to try and save the lives of others. During periods of economic or political upheaval, University which shall contain high grade shops and Heroism is a subjective topic. Heroes themselves a hero often rises. Franklin D. Roosevelt was viewed by offices in the buildings above. The thought is that this will are often contradictory, making it even harder to agree on the people as economic hope. Martin Luther King Jr. was make the square and the immediate surroundings the who is a hero and who isn’t. One man’s hero could be a voice of hope during the political turmoil of the 60’s; most valuable shopping district in the world.” another man’s criminal. It is not just a question of good and Eisenhower brought a sense of military hope during World The Rockefellers would buy a small part of evil, because many of the candidates have a little bit of War II. Columbia’s midtown real estate holdings. They would each in them. One conclusion we almost reached is that it then give this land away to the Metropolitan Opera. The Lindbergh was opposed to America entering doesn’t matter whether or not everyone agrees upon a opera people would in turn construct their building on the World War II. When he spoke declaring his opposition, he specific hero. In fact, that is likely impossible. What site. The Rockefellers would then rent from Columbia the was labeled as Anti-Semitic and Pro-Nazi. Lindbergh fell matters is that we each have a person that we look up to, area between Fifth and Sixth Avenues and 48th to 51st from grace because he was flawed. J. Edgar Hoover was for whatever reason, as our hero. We are proud of that Streets. They would get developers to pay them for the also a flawed hero, as was his nemesis, Public Enemy No. person for an acomplishment. Even if they were not right to build commercial and office space on the proper- 1, John Dillinger. Dillinger was an enemy to the banks and consistently heroic, there was a moment when they did ty. the government, but his actions made him a hero to the something amazing. They did something that people The deal bespoke a perfect symmetry. workign class just when they needed one during the Great could believe in and dream about. But, as Bertolt Brecht Rockefeller stood to make two or three million a year in Depression. said, “Unhappy is the land that has no heroes; unhappy is rents from the developers, just about indefinitely, and Often, the times themselves tell us when we need the land that needs one.” would incur a one-time cash outlay of only $3.6 million a hero. If George Washington hadn’t had the strength of and very little work. Attorney Francis W. Christy of the Continued on page 8 IRONDALE ENSEMBLE PROJECT Non Profit P.O. Box 150604 Organization Brooklyn, New York 11215-0604 U.S. Postage Paid New York, NY www.irondale.org 5443 Address Service Requested AApprriill 1166 -- MMaayy 1188 Friday, May 3 - 6 PM Special Benefit Performance TTuueessddaayy -- SSaattuurrddaayy 88 PPMM Curtain 7 PM Theater for the New City Reception with cast following performance. 155 First Ave, NYC Between 9th and 10th Streets Tickets $50.00 For reservations call (718) 488-9233 or visit our website at www.irondale.org THE MURALS OF Director’s ROCKEFELLER CENTER Note The title Murals of Rockefeller Center is a TIMELINE metaphorical one. The primary thread of the play tells the story of the artist Diego Rivera’s attempt to (1839 2001) paint a large, colorful fresco containing a most 1839 conspicuous portrait of Lenin. The painting was to July 8: John Davison Rockefeller Sr. is born. have been located over the information desk in the Main Lobby of the RCA Building at Rockefeller 1849 Center, but, before it could be completed, Rocke- Following allegations of rape, Bill Rockefeller moves his feller’s representatives fired Rivera and immediately family to Owego, New York, close to the Pennsylvania border. had the painting covered, forbidding the public to Crown Point County Jail - view it or the artist to even take photographs of it to 1855 Prosecuter Robert Estill and John Dillinger mark his work. Some months later, the Rockefellers Under pressure from his father, John D. Rockefeller had the fresco blasted off the wall with air hammers drops out of high school two months shy of reducing it to dust and rubble. This story is told from commencement. He enters a professional school, where he studies double-entry bookkeeping, Rivera’s point of view and makes ample use of his penmanship, banking, and commercial law. JohnJohn DillingerDillinger ability to overcome prosaic details of biography with greater “truths” of his own invention. 1859 John Herbert Dillinger was born in Indianapolis, As Diego tells his own story, he manages to Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species is published. Indiana, on June 22, 1903. After receiving a dishonorable weave other tales into the fabric of his invention. In 1861 discharge from the U.S. Navy, Dillinger married sixteen- doing so he makes use of the life and legend of other The Civil War begins. Rockefeller, like some other year-old Beryl Hovious in April of 1924. On September 6, prominent figures of the age, notably Charles northern businessmen, hires substitutes to avoid 1924, Dillinger and an acquaintance from the local baseball Lindbergh and John Dillinger, to examine the role of fighting. The war at first disrupts industry, but ultimately team, Ed Singleton, attempted to rob the local grocer. The the hero and anti-hero in American society. In their accelerates economic development in the North, holdup failed, and Dillinger was arrested the next day, as own way Lindbergh and Dillinger also paint huge contributing to Rockefeller’s meteoric ascent.