2022-10-24 07:00:00
Nightcrawlers were key to getting former dancer Nancy King Zeckendorf to New York City.
Zeckendorf collected the soon-to-be fish bait in her hometown of Tidioute, Penn., selling them to “the bait lady” for a penny a piece, according to her new memoir, Small Town, Big Dreamsreleased last week from Goff Books. When she saved enough, Zeckendorf, now 88, added to her record collection or paid the postman a quarter for a ride to dance classes.
Her love of music and desire to dance brought her to Manhattan for additional training, and, eventually, to join the Juilliard School in 1951, the first year it offered a B.S. in dance.
The then-Nancy King worked with legends such as London Ballet founder Antony Tudor, dancer and choreographer Agnes de Mille, and modern dance icon Martha Graham. “I’m still amazed at the number of legendary figures from the dance world I met in one school year,” she writes in her memoir. A book party—including a conversation between the author and in-coming American Ballet Theatre (ABT) artistic director (and Mikhail Baryshnikov protege) Susan Jaffe—was held at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center earlier this month.
Zeckendorf went on to dance on Broadway and as a principal at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico. Then she married into one of New York’s most powerful real estate dynasties.
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William Zeckendorf Sr., her soon-to-be father-in-law, owned the Chrysler Building and Hotel Astor, a Beaux-Arts hotel that rivaled the Waldorf Astoria. He was also instrumental in bringing the United Nations to New York and worked with modern architects like Le Corbusier and I.M. Pei.
Nancy’s husband, William Zeckendorf Jr., or Bill, was also an active developer in Manhattan, converting hotels to condos, and, later, in Santa Fe. Mrs. Zeckendorf occasionally helped her husband with interior design, but also started a new career: fundraising for the arts.
Over the last few decades, she has helped raise millions for the American Ballet Theatre, the Santa Fe Opera, and the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe, where she remains a chair and founding director.
Penta caught up with her following the book launch to talk regarding the memoir, hot dogs with Andy Warhol, and French wine with I.M. Pei, plus some fundraising advice.
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PENTA: What inspired you to write this book?
Nancy Zeckendorf: I wasn’t really inspired; I was beaten into it. These two friends of mine who had heard my stories regarding what I did at the Met and in my life, and they were just so adamant…it never would have occurred to me, because everybody does a lot of stuff like this. I’m from a small town and finally got to New York—the story of thousands of people.
After you married Bill, did you get involved with any of his projects?
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Bill bought the Delmonico Hotel [now Trump Park Avenue]many years ago, before he really started building in the city. At the time, the city was in pretty bad shape. It was the early 1970s, and hotels weren’t doing well and condos weren’t doing well. He decided to turn them into rental apartments. We had all this furniture in the lobby that was going to go to auction, but I went to my husband and said, “This stuff is really nice. I can furnish apartments with this.” So I moved the stuff upstairs and had a room for chairs, another for tables. I did that for two years…it was one of the most fun things in my life.
You talk regarding traveling with I.M. Pei in your book. What was that like?
His daughter was at the launch event at the library. She came up to me and said, “There had to be a Pei here.” The families had a wonderful relationship. Because Bill’s father had taken I.M. Pei and his wife, Eileen, to Paris and France to sample great French wines, he wanted to do the same for us. So we went with them to Hong Kong. China wasn’t open then, but he wanted to give us great Chinese food. And we met them in France for another trip. He was looking at limestone for one of his buildings and limestone comes from the Burgundy country, right? So we killed two birds with one stone. I.M. Pei loved good food and good wine.
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And then you all lived in an apartment he designed?
Yes, it was a building on Beekman Place and I.M. Pei built the penthouse on top of it for Bill’s father. When he died, we bought it and lived there a while. That introduced me to very contemporary design. It’s like dancing in studios that have such wonderful space and good lines. Living in that apartment really affected me a lot and I was so proud of it.
I also wanted to ask you regarding your fundraising career. I loved the line, “once a ballerina always a ballerina. Once a fundraiser, always a fundraiser.” What appealed to you regarding it?
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It was a natural thing; I didn’t have any real training. When I first started doing it for ABT, there was no such thing as a development director. I just went in and Lucia [Chase, the company’s founder] gave me a little box and said, “these are my friends. Write them a letter.” That’s how I started. Again, it’s just putting things together and making them work. But it also has to be something you know and love and can paint a picture of for people. It would not be so easy for me to fundraise for a tractor company.
You wrote in the book that raising funds is an art form in itself.
Yes. The important thing is to find the right amount to ask for. This great fundraiser in New York told me, “sometimes you ask someone and they say they can’t because they are already giving to something else. Tell them right away, ‘that’s wonderful that you’re doing that.’” It makes them feel good…and usually they will turn around and give you something. That’s worked for me a couple of times.
Do you have a favorite gala?
At ABT, we started an event where we got celebrities to host dinner and I brought that idea to Santa Fe. Everyone loves to go to private homes for dinner. For that first one, we were promoting a movie, a film version of the ballet Giselle with Carla Fracci and Erik Bruhn…Andy Warhol was one of the hosts. Mrs. Gimbel was coming, Mrs. Gimbel from Gimbel’s Department Store, and she wanted to go to dinner at Warhol’s. I called her secretary and said, “Are you sure? He is serving hot dogs.” And the secretary said, “Mrs. Gimbel loves hot dogs.”
Santa Fe’s Lensic Performing Arts Center is a restored downtown theater that presents music and movies—including showings of The Met Opera’s Live in HD series. Tell me regarding your work there?
My husband put the whole thing together in the late 1990s. I had just finished 15 years with the Santa Fe Opera, including raising money for the new opera house. I chaired a US$21 million campaign for that. He turned to me one day and said, “You have to raise the money for it.” And I said, “I’m on a permanent sabbatical.” And he said, “No, you’re not.” So we did that together. [Bill died in 2014.] I’m still very much involved with that. I’m the face of the theater. But listen, I’m 88, I’m not starting any other projects anytime soon.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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