On May 14, 1959 President Dwight D. Eisenhower broke ground for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
New York City's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts became a reality in September, 1962 when the first of its performing spaces, Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall), was inaugurated with a concert of music by Vaughan Williams and Mahler (among others) played by the New York Philharmonic conducted by its Music Director of the time, Leonard Bernstein.
