Revson Fountain is a fountain installed in the

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 ...

, a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of the

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History ...

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

in New York City. The fountain was dedicated in 1964 and a redesign was completed in 2009.

History

Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect who designed modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the postmodern 550 ...

Associates, the fountain was dedicated on April 6, 1964. It was originally called the Lincoln Center fountain; its namesake is

Charles Revson Charles Haskell Revson (October 11, 1906August 24, 1975) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was best known as a pioneering figure in the American cosmetics industry as the person who created the first pigment-based nail polish and ...

. The fountain was funded by the Revlon Foundation in 1962.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro Diller has several uses including: People with the surname *Barry Diller (born 1942), American businessman *Burgoyne Diller (1906–1965), American abstract painter * Dwight Diller (1946–2023), American musician * Karl Diller (born 1941), Germ ...

, the lead architects of the 2006 renovation of Lincoln Center, made several proposals to redesign the fountain, eventually changing the perimeter bench to a floating granite disk; the fountain itself was rebuilt by

WET Design WET, also known as WET Design, is a water feature design firm based in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1983 by former Disney Imagineers Mark Fuller, Melanie Simon, and Alan Robinson, the company has designed over two hundred fountains and wa ...

from 2007 to 2009.

Andrew Dolkart Andrew Scott Dolkart is a professor of historic preservation at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) and served as the director of the school's Historic Preservation Program from 2008 to 2016 ...

objected to the redesign: "It’s the thing that upsets me most of all about what's happened at Lincoln Center. They thought that they needed to spend a lot of money ripping out Philip Johnson's fountain and putting in something new instead of restoring something that worked well." The rebuilt fountain debuted on September 30, 2009, at a ceremony attended by members of Charles Revson's family.

Design

As originally designed, the fountain employed 568 jets and 88 lights with a combined illumination power of 26 kW. It was in diameter and was computer controlled, capable of shooting water in the air. J. S. Hamel of Hamel and Lancer was credited with engineering the fountain. The core of the fountain was an array of 40 jets arranged in a diameter circle around 16 lights capable of throwing water in the air; there were two larger concentric rings with smaller jets outside the core. The total combined flowrate of all the nozzles was . The water level of the fountain was elevated from the plaza level in the original design, which used a curb and bench around the perimeter of the retaining pool; during the redesign, the water level was lowered to the level of the plaza and the bench was reduced to a circular rim floating on slim supports. The redesigned fountain contains 353 jets arrayed in three concentric rings and 272 lights with a total illumination power of 27.2 kW. After the redesign, the fountain is capable of shooting water as high as in the air; 24 pumps move up to .

In popular media

Revson Fountain has been featured in several notable films set in New York City, including: * ''The Producers'' (1967) * ''Sweet Charity'' (1969) * ''On a Clear Day You Can See Forever'' (1970) * ''Godspell'' (1973) * ''Manhattan'' (1979) * ''

Ghostbusters ''Ghostbusters'' is a 1984 American supernatural comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. It stars Bill Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis as Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Egon Spengler, three eccentric ...

'' (1984) * ''

Moonstruck ''Moonstruck'' is a 1987 American romantic comedy film directed by Norman Jewison and written by John Patrick Shanley. It stars Cher as a widowed Italian-American woman who falls in love with her fiancé's hot-tempered, estranged younger broth ...

'' (1987) * ''Sweet Home Alabama'' (2002) In 2017, the water in Revson Fountain was dyed bright yellow during a prank.

References

External links

* {{Commons category-inline, Revson Fountain 1964 establishments in New York City Fountains in New York City Lincoln Center