Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Lincoln Center's Grand Stair And The Josie Robertson Plaza

The Josie Robertson Plaza is the center of the Lincoln Center campus at Columbus Avenue between 62nd and 65th Streets. The primary entryway to Lincoln Center features the visually elegant and dramatic 170-foot-wide Grand Stair directly from Columbus Avenue onto the Josie Robertson Plaza. The seven stairs, each tread five feet deep, display informational LED text, such as welcome in different languages as part of Lincoln Center’s innovative 16-channel InfoScape. At the center of the plaza is the Revson Fountain, named after cosmetics excutive Chalres Revson, and designed by Philip Johnson with Richard Foster, is internally illuminated by 88 lamps emitting 26,000 watts of light and contains a complex of 577 jets that could spew forth 9,000 gallons of water per minute in a wide range of patterns--its most spectacular effect was the emission of a thirty-foot-high, six-foot-wide column of water. The entire presentation is electronically orchestrated by computer-programmed tapes played in a control booth beneath the plaza.