David Geffen Hall

The story

Lincoln Center once stripped a philanthropist's name from its concert hall to sell the rights to the highest bidder. Avery Fisher had donated $10.5 million to the New York Philharmonic in 1973, earning his name on the building for four decades — until 2014, when officials announced they would remove it as part of a $500 million fundraising campaign. David Geffen's $100 million donation in 2015 won the wall. The 2,200-seat hall, designed by Max Abramovitz and opened in 1962, had struggled with acoustical problems almost from the start, a flaw that decades of renovations only partially resolved.