Ahead, an aerial view of Grant’s Tomb squatting before the majestic Hudson River. To the left, the spirelike tower of Riverside Church. To the right, the ribbon of the elevated subway heading up Broadway (well, not so stunning).
The spread behind is pretty good too: a 3,000-square-foot apartment with three bedrooms, 2½ baths and a vast living room adorned with designer furniture and fine paintings.
This spectacular penthouse apartment is the new residence of the president of the Manhattan School of Music, and it is not just a dwelling. The penthouse serves as a symbol of the conservatory’s struggle to shake off second-class status, or at least the perception of it.
Manhattan’s president, Robert Sirota, said “received knowledge” put the conservatory in the shadow of what he called “that other school down in Lincoln Center,” also known as Juilliard — which used to occupy Manhattan’s main buildings.
“The value of the school has not been properly projected,” Mr. Sirota said. “Juilliard is an international brand. I’m not concerned with becoming another brand. What I’m concerned about is getting the clearest possible picture of how phenomenal this school is.”
The new penthouse is being unveiled today, along with two other spaces, a large performance and rehearsal room and a new recital hall. Together they are the capstone of the school’s $70 million tower at 122nd Street and Claremont Avenue, which opened in the fall of 2001 and provides living quarters for 380 students.
Publicizing the apartment also serves the broader project of sprucing up the school’s image, which includes the addition of well-known names to the teaching roster, a new contemporary-music program, plans to start a program in musical theater, an overhaul of its logo and printed materials, even new banners on the building. Mr. Sirota said he wanted the school to be seen as a Brooklyn Academy of Music to Juilliard’s Lincoln Center.
Fitting out the penthouse cost $1.3 million, Mr. Sirota said. Some might ask why the president of a music conservatory — where tuition is $27,400 a year — in dowdy, scholarly Morningside Heights needs a palatial spread fitted out with a Noguchi sofa, a Ligne Roset couch and chairs and a Dakota Jackson dining table.
“It would have been great to spend money on students first, and then spend money on getting a really nice penthouse for the president,” said Ricardo Romaneiro, a composer and 2002 graduate. “When I went there, they never gave me money for anything.”
Joshua Frank, who received his master’s degree from Manhattan last May, said the apartment “says something positive about the direction the school wants go in.”
“It’s just a little surprising,” he added. “They have lots of other things that need to be dealt with.”
Part of the penthouse’s value is the image it projects. In the hunt for big-game donors, an exercise crucial to any nonprofit institution, Manhattan decided it needed a prime location to entertain potential contributors. “This is an investment that will pay off many times over,” Mr. Sirota said, including an increase in scholarships.
The home’s centerpiece is a vast living room that flows out from a Steinway B piano. It can seat about 50 people. The kitchen is set up for catering large meals. The apartment will be used for faculty and student receptions, informal concerts and parties for visiting artists.
“You need the right stuff to do that,” Mr. Sirota said, calling the penthouse a “kind of hyper-parsonage.”
A composer and conductor, Mr. Sirota took over at Manhattan in the fall of 2005, well after the penthouse had been planned. He had been director of the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore. He and his wife, the Rev. Victoria Sirota, an Episcopal priest, have a son and a daughter who play viola professionally — and attended Juilliard.
The Sirotas displayed some awe at their surroundings while giving a visitor a tour last week, pointing out the elegant furniture provided by the school in place of their old objets d’Ikea.
“It’s unbelievable,” Mr. Sirota said. “We are regular people. This has been a fascinating and very challenging exercise in really entering public life through our home.”
The bedroom wing is temporary. It will be converted into quarters for visitors, and the president’s sleeping space will be moved to the floor upstairs, once construction is finished there.
Joel Lester, the dean of the Mannes College of Music, the third major conservatory in the city, said it was rare for a music school to provide a home for its director. “Good for him,” he said of Mr. Sirota. Mr. Lester said he lived in a modest co-op apartment in Riverdale, the Bronx, and entertained trustees and gives dinners in borrowed apartments or clubs.
Juilliard has a presidential penthouse on the 29th floor of its Rose building, the student dormitory, but it is used mainly for functions. “It’s nice, but I can’t see Grant’s Tomb,” said Joseph W. Polisi, the president of Juilliard, who prefers to live in his house in Rye, N.Y. “I’m sure he’ll invite me up there sometime.”
The new recital hall, which seats 153 people, is also being unveiled today. Mr. Sirota said he hoped it would be an important new place for performances in New York, although he was not ready to announce concert programs. It is named after the donors who put up most of the approximately $2.3 million that it cost to build: William R. and Irene D. Miller.
And therein lies a small problem.
Just six blocks from the Manhattan School’s new Miller Recital Hall sits the Miller Theater at Columbia University, a busy performing arts institution with many classical music concerts. (The Millers are not related to Kathryn Bache Miller, for whom the Columbia theater is named.) The similar names create a marketing headache.
Mr. Sirota sounded unperturbed by the similar names. “It’s a challenge we’ve been presented with, and we’ll deal with it,” he said. “I don’t see it as a major problem. Those are the donors, and you name it after the donors.”
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