Go-to attorney for cultural capital projects: the late Samuel (“Sandy”) Lindenbaum
You are planning a major cultural-facility expansion project, which will require zoning variances, may rile NIMBY activists and will need an expert skipper to navigate through the perilous shoals of the New York City government approval process. Who you gonna call?
For decades, there was one answer—Sandy Lindenbaum. Whenever I covered NYC government hearings regarding cultural projects, Sandy (or one of his law partners) was always in attendance. (Before him, the lawyer I’d always see on such occasions was John Zuccotti, Lindenbaum’s predecessor as dean of NYC land-use lawyers, now perhaps best known for the eponymous park where Occupy Wall Street protesters recently congregated.)
Samuel (no one called him that) Lindenbaum, New York’s preeminent land-use attorney and an enthusiastic supporter of art museums, died Friday after a long illness. The long list of tributes published on the NY Times classified obits page includes warm appreciations from the Metropolitan Museum (where he was an honorary trustee, with his and his widow Linda‘s names affixed to two galleries), the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
His other cultural clients (listed on the website of his law firm, Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel) included Carnegie Hall, the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art (including its current plan to expand into a new Jean Nouvel-designed tower) and (as CultureGrrl readers may remember) the Whitney Museum.
After encountering him appreciatively gazing at Klimt‘s “Apple Tree I” at Christie’s presale exhibition for its November 2006 Impressionist/modern sale, I wrote:
Sandy is the go-to guy for getting the necessary government approvals on just about every major museum expansion project in the city. The
Whitney Museum has been no exception: He has lawyered its every iteration, from Michael Graves to Rem Koolhaas to the now endangered Renzo Piano plan. [At that time, the Whitney was planning a Piano-designed expansion of the existing uptown Whitney. Designs for the downtown High LIne facility came later.]
The Observer has published a good summary of his work on major commercial projects, but not of his nonprofit cultural projects. The NY Times has yet to weigh in with an obit of this man who perhaps more than any other individual has had an far-reaching impact on recent changes to the New York cityscape.
More than one posthumous tribute describes Lindenbaum as a man of integrity. In the above-linked Observer obit, Daniel Geiger writes:
Though zoning battles often draw accusations of impropriety, such as the influence and money of powerful developers on the city’s planning
officials, Mr. Lindenbaum was known for his spotless ethics.“I can’t tell you how many times I would hear a new client come in and say ‘Sandy, I need influence on this development’,” Mr. [Michael] Sillerman [his law partner] said. “And Sandy would say ‘I’m a good lawyer, I’m smart and I’m capable but if that [influence] is what you’re looking for, you’re in the wrong office.'”
He was also a nice and unusually accessible guy. I was always amazed at how easily I could get this high-powered player on the phone for a quick interview. He made a point of thanking me for my mentions of him in my October 2000 Wall Street Journal article (for which I don’t have a link) on MoMA’s plans for its Yoshio Taniguchi-designed expansion. When, somewhat astonished, I observed to him that he didn’t really need any publicity from me, he replied (only half-jokingly) that seeing his name in the WSJ meant a lot to his elderly mother, Belle (who died in 2006). He came from a land-use dynasty: His father, Abraham (“Bunny”) Lindenbaum, was a major real estate power broker, whose law firm Sandy joined in 1962.
I found myself sitting next to him at an April 2009 New York press lunch regarding the (now realized) plans for the Israel Museum’s expansion. When I told him that I had been assigned to eventually do a Wall Street Journal profile of Tom Campbell, the director of the Metropolitan Museum, Sandy launched into an enthusiastic description of the new director’s plans to upgrade technology, provide more information about the collections and improve the visitor experience.
He didn’t just do highly successful legal work for art museums. He also supported them and was genuinely devoted to them.
Lindenbaum listening to the Israel Museum’s presentation at its 2009 NYC press lunch
Photo by Lee Rosenbaum