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of Orchestra Hall into a music and education center replete
n 1994, land developer Peter Cummings was in his sec-
with a three-story atrium lobby and a 500-seat recital hall, is
ond year on the Detroit Symphony Orchestra board. A
the centerpiece of the larger Orchestra Place, a three-phase,
relative newcomer here, he felt the invitation to serve
$220-million project. The Max, including the Jacob Bernard
came mainly because he had a rich father-in-law —
Pincus Music Education Center for students and young musi-
Franklin industrialist Max Fisher.
cians,
will open Oct. 9. The first phase — an office building,
And that feeling proved prescient.
sculpture
court and parking structure — was finished in
Cummings was asked to approach Fisher about making a
1998. The last phase, the High School for the Fine,
gift to the DSO to improve the home of the symphony: his-
Performing and Communication Arts, will open next year.
toric Orchestra Hall on Woodward Avenue in a blighted area
Fisher's gut reaction to a simple plan set the stage for all
living off echoes of its once vibrant past.
this. "He is a man who was not a lover of music. This is a
Fisher is a generous giver to causes he believes in, but isn't a
man who really shunned publicity. But for this project, this is
music lover.
a
man who made a difference," Cummings said.
"For Max, the arts just don't compute,"
Orchestra Hall went up in 1919 on the foundation of the
Cummings said. "He has a number of posi-
former Old Westminster Church at a cost of $600,000. The
tives — he's a great philanthropist and a
intent was to convince popular visiting conductor Ossip
wonderful citizen — but he could no more
Gabrilowitsch, a Russian Jew, to stay as DSO conductor.
understand paying a lot of money to hang a
"The neighborhood was very, very well developed with resi-
picture on the wall or paying a maestro half a
dential and commercial uses in 1919," Cummings said.
million dollars a year."
"But by 1994, it had become a neighborhood pretty much
Married to Fisher's daughter Julie since
ROBERT A. 1978, Cummings knows the family patriarch
disinvested."
SKLAR
well.
Editor
So he responded:
An Optimistic View
"Max loves the city of
Cummings, a Montreal native and member of Temple Israel
Detroit and is committed to the education
in
West Bloomfield, has become one of Detroit's quiet, grace-
of inner-city school children. If we make
ful
ambassadors. He became a U.S. citizen in 1984. A
this not just an arts story, but also a story of
defeatist
he's not. "We read a lot of conflicting press and neg-
the regeneration of the city and the educa-
ative
press
about Detroit," said Cummings, a former journal-
tion of its children, we might have the
ist, "but the way I look at it, we are in year
opportunity to appeal not only to Max, but
.51/1fr"wir
six
of
a 30-year process. Many of us in this
also a lot of fenders for whom the arts are
room
won't live to see the rebirth of the city
Cummings
just not relevant or perhaps less relevant
in
its
new
form, but our children and grand-
than they were in past generations."
children will."
Cummings, chairman of Florida-based Ram Development
It was good to hear someone who grew up
Company, decided he would regale his father-in-law with the
elsewhere
pin Detroit's future on the
idea of building a lobby and backstage support space at the
younger
generation,
a generation growing
north end of Orchestra Hall. For moral support, he recruited
up
in
a
multi-ethnic
world and with a real
then-Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer. Together, they went to
yearning
for
urban
living.
"I think this
Fisher
Max Fisher's office in the Fisher Building to pitch the plan.
augers
very
well
for
the
city
of Detroit,"
"Dennis reinforced the message I was trying to put forth,"
Cummings
said.
Cummings said. "Max listened, then looked at me, shook his
And it does.
finger and said, 'You are not thinking on a large enough
Five weeks before, I heard Gov. Jennifer Granholm tell the
scale."
Jewish
Community Council of Metropolitan Detroit that
It was now June 1994.
depressed
urban cities must add apartment lofts, cyber cafes
Big things were about to embrace Orchestra Hall, the
and nightlife before they will attract younger residents.
DSO's home from 1919-1939 and again since 1989. During
Cummings brought his wife and three children to
the 1970s, the building, by then in disrepair, avoided the
Bloomfield
Hills from Florida in 1989. But it didn't take him
wrecking ball thanks to the Save Orchestra Hall fund-raising
long to realize Detroit wouldn't regenerate "unless we zero in
effort.
on certain neighborhoods."
His special interest is the Woodward corridor between
The Bigger Picture
Comerica Park and the Detroit Institute of Arts; at the mid-
Cummings recounted this turn of events in his keynote
point is Orchestra Hall. "The corridor really does have an
address to 110 guests at the Jewish Historical Society of
extraordinary collection of institutions — educational, health
Michigan's annual meeting June 29 at Adat Shalom
care and cultural — around which a neighborhood could be
Synagogue in Farmington Hills. His topic was "Making
built," he told the gathering of history buffs.
History-Remaking Detroit."
Gary Torgow, a fellow Detroit redeveloper and a leader of
I was struck by the deliberate way he courted his father-in-
Detroit Jewry, introduced Cummings as speaker the same day
law that day in 1994. Fisher will turn 95 on Tuesday.
the New York Times reported grim times stemming from an
"Max knew, intuitively, the project as originally conceived
anachronistic business model for so many symphony orches-
did not possess sufficient critical mass to have a meaningful
tras. "The Orchestra Place project and its incredible results,"
impact on the neighborhood," Cummings said. "In essence,
Torgow said, "are a credit to Peter's vision and tenacity in how
he sent me back to the drawing board. The larger Orchestra
a solution starts."
Place that is now unfolding is the result."
In effect, Torgow was saying that access to wealth isn't an
The Max M. Fisher Music Center, a $60-million expansion
end unto itself Li

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