“OK, give me a business plan,” Steve Witkoff ordered, as he finished agreeing with Sarah Jessica Parker that St. Veronica should offer something for everybody, not only seniors, but young people and even kids.
When I sat down to write the “Business Plan” I was stuck. How do you write a business plan to create a community concert hall? We’re talking about a recently closed church, closed because it did not have enough parishioners to even pay the heat bill. How do you turn that near abandoned church into a community concert hall with free concerts for seniors?
I mean, a business plan is for a business. How much money do you have to spend before there is even a business. And! We want to give seats away to seniors for free—not very business-like.
No, the only way this is going to work is if we get a couple of big donors, like Langone, who gave millions and they named the hospital after him—NYU Langone.
Hmm, but where do we find these billionaires? And why would they give Music at St. Veronica a few million or even $5000 as the City did?
And, there is another problem—the millionaires and billionaires (we have a few living in the West Village) have never heard of our free concerts for seniors at St. Veronica (they go to Lincoln Center and have a season subscription).
So the idea is to somehow, someway, keep giving concerts in the hope our local one percenters will learn of them and divert some of the funding they are giving to less worthy causes to Free Concerts for Seniors. But hey, if you are a West Village one percenter, or know of one, come to the garden at 69 Charles for a sip of cold wine and exchange a bit of your surplus wealth for a modest slice of immortality.
— George Capsis
