Levitt-ating Outdoor Tunes

Manhattan's E. 82nd St., looking down the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
You can see an orange garbage truck in front of an ambulance.
And the ambulance had its lights and siren going.
Yet no effort seemed apparent to let the ambulance resume its emergency response.
So as the garbage truck crawled down the block, the ambulance inched along behind,
letting its shrill siren speak its frustration.

This was the last weekend of 2024's concert series at our Levitt Pavilion here in Arlington, Texas.

Arlington's Levitt has hosted a series of live music concerts in our city's downtown district every summertime since 2008.  I used to attend them frequently, but stopped doing so a number of years ago.  

This past June, I started going again.  I'm not necessarily a fan of the music they generally host, but I have to admit:  Listening to live music outdoors can be a uniquely enjoyable experience.

That idea of providing live music outdoors was part of what led New York City philanthropists Mortimer and Mimi Levitt to begin funding venues for such concerts across the country.  Their first one was built in the 1970's, on a former town dump in affluent Westport, Connecticut, near the Levitt's summer home.  In 2003, they contributed money for overhauling Pasadena, California's historic Art-Deco bandshell.  And next came lil' ol' us, here in Arlington, where our struggling downtown needed a signature redevelopment project.

Arlington's Levitt Pavilion opened in 2008, on the site of what had been a small office building for Texas Electric Service Company.  It's across the street from city hall, and next-door to the campus of First Baptist Church.  Municipal facilities and some long-time churches were almost all that were left downtown, since ours had become like many across suburban America:  snubbed by corporate tenants who wanted massive office parks, and abandoned by shoppers who wanted air-conditioned malls.  

Still, our downtown did have a few things going for it.  Crime wasn't really a problem, for example, and we never had urban blight.  Plus, one of the largest campuses in the University of Texas system anchored the district's southwestern corner, with tens of thousands of students.  Our downtown certainly wasn't a dump, yet it lacked any notable architecture or cultural heritage sites, putting it at something of a crossroads.  Either it could continue a long, quiet slide into further irrelevancy, or it could search for an infusion of intrigue.

Perhaps a nascent notion of where it could go came from one attraction our downtown used to have:  the former Johnnie High's Country Music Revue.  It was a rather unpolished effort for musicians somewhere between amateur and almost-professional, staged from an old, faded theater.  It never gave Nashville any run for its money, but it represented Arlington's first significant live-music venue.  

And its significance came when High helped "discover" LeAnn Rimes, right here in Arlington.  Not Dallas, nor Fort Worth.

High and his family were among downtown's earliest redevelopment advocates.  In fact, back in the day, I participated in a couple of community events where we locals strategized with city leaders and urban development professionals about downtown's future.  And one of those "charrettes" was held in High's banquet hall.

October 12, 2024, at Arlington's Levitt Pavilion.
The artist on stage was Braedon Barnhill.

Around that time, the Levitts were establishing their live outdoor music foundation, and Arlington landed on their radar.  I don't know how all the funding worked, but a brand-new, contemporary venue got built with considerable fanfare.  I was hoping we'd get a nostalgic-looking bandshell like Pasadena's, but what we got is larger yet relatively anonymous in its aesthetics.  On the plus side, it has a deep, elevated stage flanked by sleek, curved walls.  But it's topped with a flat, angled roof that looks merely utilitarian.  The stage is aimed directly into the setting Texas sun, meaning musicians are literally frying in rays for the first part of most evening performances. 

But that also means audiences never look into a glare... except when all of the stage lights are swirling and flashing in full brightness.

In theory, the Levitt Foundation wants each of its venues to provide at least 50 summer concerts annually for their respective communities.  However, here in Texas, summer evenings often see temperatures stay well above 90 well into the night.  So Arlington's Levitt splits up its concert season into clusters of events around Memorial Day and Labor Day, on into early October.

And here we are. 

I believe the very first concert at Arlington's Levitt, back in 2008, was actually a special fundraiser which I didn't attend.  But the next night launched their series of "free" concerts, and I was there for that one.

When Arlington's Levitt opened, I was working for an Internet technology company located downtown.  My boss, who was involved in several civic endeavors, got the contract for the pavilion's local website.  I helped work on its content with their staff, and learned some of the Levitt background that helped me understand it wasn't just a re-boot of the nostalgic, ad-hoc community bandshell.  This was a real pursuit of sustainable arts development.

For my first few concerts, I remember simply sitting on one of the concrete benches ringing the perimeter of the amphitheater's grassy lawn.  But as you can imagine, concrete gets mighty uncomfortable during a two-hour music session.  So I went out and bought a canvas camping chair just for my Levitt visits.  'Cause I don't actually do camping, y'all.  Eventually, it started to fall apart, so I got some thick string from my late grandmother's sewing kit and did a rudimentary job of stitching that chair back together.  And remarkably, it's held ever since.

After my dear father developed dementia, and his activity level began to decline, I'd have him sit in that canvas chair in our backyard, since it was better than the rickety folding chairs he and Mom had owned for decades.  But I could tell he was still uncomfortable in it, so I hunted about and bought a high-back canvas chair for him.  Since I now had two camping chairs, the both of us would often sit in our backyard, under our enormous magnolia tree, just enjoying each other's company, our view down the creek behind our house, and the lawn which Dad could no longer mow.  He'd sit there and verbalize his contentment with the tableau, and then ask whose house this was.  And I'd reply, "It's your house, Dad.  Yours and Mom's.  You own it and this is all yours."  And he'd smile and nod his head... until he'd ask the same question five minutes later.  And just as he'd repeat his question, I'd repeat my answer.  

If you've cared for a loved one with dementia, you know how that goes... On and on, right?

Those were hard years, and looking back I wonder the extent to which sitting in those chairs with Dad, and that particular "conversation" we always had, played a role in the halt of my Levitt attendance.  For a long time after his passing, I couldn't even look at those chairs in our garage without recalling his questions about someplace he should have recognized as his own.  Perhaps it's more than coincidental that October 12, which was this past Saturday, marked the 9th anniversary of his death from full-blown Alzheimer's.  And October 12 was the last regularly-scheduled concert of this year's Levitt Arlington season.

And I took Dad's high-back canvas chair to sit in.  I can do it now without much emotion.

My Dad had been born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, just like Mortimer Levitt was.  Mortimer's father was a busker on Coney Island, which was one of my father's favorite childhood places, even if, like Mortimer, my Dad could rarely afford to pay for its legendary amusements.  For his part, Mortimer would go down to Coney Island and stand with his father outside the district's music halls and listen to the songs coming from musicians inside, but he never could afford to pay to go in and listen as a legitimate audience member.

Years later, after he made a small fortune selling custom-made shirts, Mortimer and his second wife, Austrian-born Annemarie "Mimi" Gratzinger Levitt, decided to plow their money into the arts.  At first, it was the usual stuff for wealthy New Yorkers, who had plenty of options in terms of local arts endeavors to support.  But Mortimer never could shake that feeling of exclusion he'd felt, standing on the sidewalk outside Coney Island's music halls.

Mortimer recalled that even out in the open air, he still enjoyed listening to the music.  And so when town leaders near their Connecticut place started talking about a new bandshell, the Levitts embraced the idea.  And things took off from there:  Outdoor.  Music.  That anybody can enjoy, whether they could afford to pay an entrance fee or not.

Today, the Levitt pavilions like to say they provide "free" music.  But that's not really true, is it?  Nothing is free, and especially not music by relatively professional musicians in modern, well-landscaped, and handicap-accessible venues boasting the latest high-tech amplification and lighting systems.  So the Levitt's organization provides a lot of money, and individual pavilions raise the rest they need to pay their expenses, which always includes paying the musicians they host.  The Levitts wanted their idea to not only benefit audiences, but also support musicians and their craft.

At the finale concert this past Saturday, a local Levitt staffer announced to the audience that each season here in Arlington costs well over $1 million to produce.  That's some expensive "free" music.

A group of local businesses help sponsor each evening's artist, and volunteers work the crowd about half-way through with buckets adorned with battery-powered LED lights, into which attendees are encouraged - but not mandated - to toss some bucks.  Some of the volunteers even carry a credit card scanner.  There's also a huge donation QR code on a jumbotron audience members can scan with their smartphone.  But for those who really can't afford to give anything, there's no money pressure.

I've heard quite a range of musical genres over my years of attending Levitt performances.  Lots of country-western, of course, and its multitude of sub-categories, such as Texas country, old-school country, bluegrass, and Tejano country.  I've heard R&B, Black Gospel, soul, and funk.  I've heard plain-Jane pop music, and stuff that frankly, I wouldn't know how to categorize.  Unfortunately, I've not once heard an orchestra, although some of the bands have been pretty big.

The music can tend to vary in quality, but since my personal preference tends to the classical side, I'm no expert on any of the genres presented at the Levitt.  Recently, there was one group whose vocals really didn't sound good at all, and people started leaving - including me.  But then again, I've never contributed anything close to conventional concert ticket prices, so I'm not complaining.

Nevertheless... maybe you're wondering why I led this essay with a photo of Manhattan's 82nd Street.

I'd been visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art before I took that picture, sometime in the late 1980's.  And if I remember correctly, even inside that massive building, we could hear a siren wailing incessantly.  Yes, there's often a siren someplace in Gotham, but its noise waxes and wanes as it moves through traffic.  This particular siren, however, had been constant for what seemed like ages.  And I discovered the noise appeared to represent a battle of wills between stubborn garbage collectors in a slow-moving truck, and a stubborn ambulance crew, who apparently thought more noise would make things better.

While I didn't know it then, I now know the Levitts actually lived on that block of 82nd Street, six doors down on the right-hand side, in an elegant townhouse that recently sold for over $11 million.  They'd lived there for decades, and during the 1970's, Mimi had become involved in historic preservation as much of their Upper East Side neighborhood was being re-zoned for high-rises.  

Interestingly, their 5-story house, while tall by suburban standards, came with 2,200 feet (roughly 22 floors) of unused "air rights".  In New York City, air rights represent a property owner's city-approved ability to construct a high-rise either on that specific site, or through a conveyance of those rights to a contiguous site, meaning there is often actual monetary value simply in the empty space above one's home.

For her part, Mimi advocated against the wholesale exploitation of such air rights.  Why?  Because they encouraged the destruction of low-rise (and often historic) properties in favor of high-rises that generally create more congestion, reduce available sunlight on the ground, and in a densely populated place like Manhattan, further dilute a neighborhood's sense of community.  After all, the more people any area attracts, the harder it gets to prevent anonymity from prevailing.

Which helps explain one of the rationales for the Levitts' magnanimity when it comes to sponsoring "free" outdoor concert venues:  community-building.  Neither Mortimer nor Mimi were against neighborhood redevelopment - shucks, they used their music pavilions as a catalyst for it!  That was one of the reasons Arlington had been an early benefactor from their foundation, because there wasn't really much community happening anymore in our downtown core.

By my calculations, looking back at that photo I took of 82nd Street, I'd guesstimate spacially that the garbage truck and ambulance could have been right in front of the Levitt's townhouse.  Which would have been so ironic, but in a bad way!

I had a sociology professor in college (in urban studies, no less) who bluntly explained that all noise - whether it's music we find enjoyable, or a garbage truck, or a siren - is basically sound pollution.  That is, if the perfect neutrality of sound is silence.

So imagine the cacophony to which residents of that block were subjected that day!  Talk about the complete opposite of the Levitts' aspirations of bringing communities together through live, outdoor "noise".  Where's the working together for common goals, or even learning to get along despite differences, which encapsulate the Levitts' more noble goals?  

After all, their idea works, at least to some degree.  You'll recall even I myself admit I don't particularly like all the types of music I've heard at their venue here in Arlington.  But I still willingly attend.

That garbage truck and ambulance on 82nd Street provided a noisy dissonance which runs contrary to the Levitts' point, and literally in their own front yard.  

I just hope there wasn't a patient already in that ambulance...

_____