Billionaire Ronald O Perelman Makes 75M Donation To World Trade Center Site Performing Arts Center

Perelman, who is known for his philanthropy and his enthusiasm for the performing arts in New York City, first became involved with the World Trade Center memorial project a decade ago, when he agreed to then-mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to donate a relatively slim $5 million. Over the course of the museum’s construction, Perelman became more and more interested in the prospect of a performing arts center on the grounds, eventually signing his name to the lead gift and taking a substantial bite out of its total construction budget of $240 million. And Perelman has a lot more in mind than just seeing his name in concrete, as per his words to The New York Times: That mix of sensibilities is just one of the things that Perelman hopes will set apart his performing arts center from New York City’s glut of mid-size venues already open for business – another will be the theater’s streaming technology that will allow for live performances to be broadcast over the internet in a more sophisticated fashion than most theaters do it now (if they do it at all). The center will be home to three separate theaters, each with a different audience capacity – 499 people, 299 people and 100 people – that can be combined into one big auditorium. And if all goes according to plan, it will be the primary home of the Tribeca Film Festival in April, along with concerts, ballets, dance performances, and more throughout the year. And thanks in part to Ronald Perelman, those plans are now a lot more likely to become a reality.