Honoring Tsais helps raise nearly $1M for Municipal Art Society (with Ratner among guests). Clara Tsai calls Barclays Center a community center. (Really?)
Four Extraordinary New Yorkers Received the 2022 Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal, the MAS stated in a 11/10/22 press release, giving the Tsais--who have residence(s) in New York City but raise(d) their kids in La Jolla, with one still there--a bit of a geographic boost.
From the press release:The event raised nearly $1 million to support MAS in its mission of lifting up the voices of the people in the debates that shape New York’s built environment and leading the way toward a more livable city from sidewalk to skyline. Founded in 1893, MAS was instrumental in key battles that have shaped the future of New York.
Honored guests
From the press release:
Honorees Jon Batiste, Clara Wu Tsai & Joe Tsai, and Earl D. Weiner were joined by an array of friends, fans, and colleagues, including Elissa Black, Ron Blaylock & Petra Pope, Gabriel Calatrava, Lisa & Dick Cashin, CaSandra Diggs, Regina Myer, Enuma Okoro, Bruce Ratner & Linda Johnson, Shanta Thake, Carla Shen, Betsy Smith & Rick Cotton, Yeohlee Teng, and Henry Timms.
Let me try to annotate the names. Of course, the first that stands out is Atlantic Yards/Barclays Center developer Bruce Ratner, with his (third) wife, Brooklyn Public Library CEO Linda Johnson.
Ratner and his deputy Maryanne Gilmartin were awarded, controversially, the Onassis Medal in 2014. (Ratner is here, with Clara Wu Tsai, in the gallery of photos posted by MAS.)
The others:- Elissa Black: Executive Director of NYCxDESIGN
- Ron Blaylock & Petra Pope: Private investor and former Brooklyn Nets VP for Entertainment (and Brooklynettes director)
- Gabriel Calatrava: architect at CAL
- Lisa Cashin & Dick Cashin: Vice-Chair of LISC (Local Initiatives Support Corporation) and private equity investor
- CaSandra Diggs: President of Council of Fashion Designers of America
- Regina Myer: President of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, a Barclays Center booster
- Enuma Okoro: Nigerian-American writer, speaker and cultural curator who, as a Financial Times columnist, wrote a myopic essay--more on that soon--on the "Belong/Brooklyn" neon art/advertising at the Barclays Center, sponsored by the Tsais
- Shanta Thake: Chief Artistic Officer at Lincoln Center, which received $50 million from the Tsais
- Carla Shen: Brooklyn philanthropist and art collector
- Betsy Smith & Rick Cotton: President/CEO of the Central Park Conservancy and Executive Director of the Port Authority
- Yeohlee Teng: Fashion designer and founder of eponymous brand
- Henry Timms: President and CEO at Lincoln Center, which received $50 million from the Tsais
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| PHOTO: China Jorrin, courtesy MAS |
News coverage
The article noted Joe Tsai's "intentionally brief remarks," likely because Clara had already spoken and also because she has gotten the spotlight for their charitable/civic gifts.
About Brooklyn
From the article:
Clara Tsai’s many responsibilities include strengthening creativity and equality in the arts through the Tsais’ namesake foundation, as well as furthering economic mobility in Brooklyn through the two-year-old Social Justice Fund....
Clara Tsai noted how those who weren’t born in Brooklyn but choose to call it home “know that Brooklyn is an identity as much as it is a geographic place. The spirit of this borough is distinct. Although I was born in Kansas to immigrants from Taiwan, this place speaks to me because it’s authentic and real.”
Such essentialism, though impossible to truly reflect a sprawling, city-sized borough with nearly 2.7 million people, does echo Brooklyn Nets marketing, as in #TheBrooklynWay.
About inclusivity
From the article:
Tsai referenced her work in recent years to make Lincoln Center more inclusive through multicultural programming for music, theater and dance, as well as more affordable pricing to attract younger audiences. While the Barclays Center is home to the New York Nets and the New York Liberty, as well as host to internationally known performers, she said it is also a community center. At the peak of the pandemic, it was a vaccination and testing site and in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, it was a site for protests against social injustices.
“We believe with the right approach we can give the community a safe space to convene, learn and exchange ideas,” Tsai said.
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| Plaza unavailable to public Photo: Nov. 20, 2022/Norman Oder |
As I've written, protest organizers considered that they'd "totally appropriated" the arena's plaza, not gotten permission from the arena operators.
The site was available for vaccination and for protests because the arena wasn't operating. Commercial purposes take precedence. Part of said community center is known as SeatGeek Plaza, given the prevalence of sponsors.
As to a "safe space," well, they kept the benches on the plaza, behind the transit entrance, out of commission from June through December--though the plaza revamp was supposed to be finished by September, and then October.
As to "convene, learn and exchange ideas," well, that gets dicey for certain ideas, like those related to anti-Semitism, as seen more recently at the arena.
But the Tsais will keep surfing on credit for the "accidental new town square" that the arena became in 2020. From the coverage:
Referring to images that flashed earlier in the program of activists outside the Barclay Center supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, [honoree Jon] Batiste said they brought to mind the incredible experiences that people had prior to and after the 2020 presidential election. Noting how four years prior to that 40 percent of eligible voters in the U.S. — 100 million people — chose not to vote, Batiste surmised that stemmed from “a sense of apathy, not chiefly distrust or [the notion that] a vote doesn’t matter.”
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