Renderings Revealed for West Side of Lincoln Center Campus

This week's release of before photos paired with renderings comes two months after Lincoln Center announced the team of Hood Design Studio (landscape architect), WEISS/MANFREDI (design architect), and Moody Nolan (architect of record) were selected to reimagine the Amsterdam Avenue side of Lincoln Center's roughly 16-acre campus. The process started in 2023 and a participatory planning process that generated feedback from thousands of New Yorkers. The focus has been on making the campus more welcoming and accessible, and paramount is improving access along Amsterdam Avenue, where Lincoln Center currently greets visitors with a blank, impenetrable wall three blocks long.

Suitably, the design team has focused on opening up Lincoln Center to Amsterdam Avenue at Damrosch Park, a sizable landscaped open space in the southwest corner of the four-block campus. The predominantly hardscape park features rows of trees and, at its western end, a bandshell. Most visitors to Lincoln Center shy away from Damrosch Park, outside of the Summer for the City performances that take place there, and the Big Apple Circus that has also called the park home. 

The preliminary design shows a new amphitheater in the southeast corner of Damrosch Park, shifted from the bandshell's location along the park's western edge. Combined with the removal of the wall at Amsterdam, the trees, fountains, and steps navigate the grade change along the sidewalk present a softer edge to the west and the residential neighbors across Amsterdam.

In addition to purported improvements in sound and audience experience, moving the performance venue away from Amsterdam Avenue will put the stage closer to the main plaza of Lincoln Center, better connecting the two tangential open spaces. It also effectively splits Damrosch Park into two halves: performance space on the east and community space on the west. The capacity of the new amphitheater is expected to be 2,000.

In addition to improvements to Damrosch Park, the design for the west side of the campus also includes (wording per a statement from Lincoln Center):

• Sidewalk improvements, including an improved bus waiting area, an expanded
  sidewalk between 62nd and 65th Streets, increased greenery and shade along this edge, and more benches and lighting for an enhanced pedestrian experience;
• Gardens at the new entrance to Damrosch Park, with a variety of spaces to sit, relax, and meet friends right at street level;
• Art and light interventions within the concourse connecting Amsterdam Avenue to the 1 train subway entrance on Broadway;
• New opportunities for seating at the West 65th Street corner of campus, where
  hundreds of area high school students engage with Lincoln Center every day.

Construction is expected to begin in spring 2026 and be completed by spring 2028.