For the last several years, the Lincoln Center has been trying to reckon with its history. "When Lincoln Center was built, crime was an issue in New York City, and so it was built as a kind of moat to keep the city out," as one former president described it. And, amid a massive redesign, on Wednesday the institution posted an hourlong documentary of its origin story—"San Juan Hill: Manhattan's Lost Neighborhood," on its YouTube channel. Originally released in 2024, the Stanley Nelson-directed doc chronicles what Robert Moses and John D. Rockefeller did to create their marble-and-gold, high-culture city on the hill, where opera and ballet would cleanse Midtown of San Juan Hill, the municipally neglected Manhattan micro-neighborhood that once ranged from 59th to 65th Streets on Manhattan's west side.
"San Juan Hill" Documentary Shows Us What Lincoln Center Destroyed
The arts institution's ignominious origin story, courtesy of itself.
