Early speeches of Abraham Lincoln, 1830-1860 . ed the building for appropriate his-torical artifacts with which to decoratethe stage. They had taken not only theLincoln bust from the lobby but also anearby bust of George Washington anda portrait of Benjamin Franklin, fromthe back of the Great Hall. This picture,moved to the left side of the stage, wasmatched on the other side by a portraitof Peter Cooper, the philanthropist whoopened his Union, at the north end ofthe Bowery, in 1859 as a free universityfor the working classes. While the GreatHall, with its tradition as a launchingpad for ideal
Early speeches of Abraham Lincoln, 1830-1860 . ed the building for appropriate his-torical artifacts with which to decoratethe stage. They had taken not only theLincoln bust from the lobby but also anearby bust of George Washington anda portrait of Benjamin Franklin, fromthe back of the Great Hall. This picture,moved to the left side of the stage, wasmatched on the other side by a portraitof Peter Cooper, the philanthropist whoopened his Union, at the north end ofthe Bowery, in 1859 as a free universityfor the working classes. While the GreatHall, with its tradition as a launchingpad for idealistic initiatives, offered theright kind of atmosphere for an appealfor economic sacrifice, Mr. Clintonspeople found the stage still a little toobare for television purposes and deckedit out in maroon drapery with goldfringes. They even decided to spruce upLincolns lectern, replacing its tatteredoriginal gold fringe with a new are the demands of publicists andimage-builders. But such people werealso around in Lincolns day. It is said. 30 THE NEW YORKER, MAY 24,1993 that the Great Hall was chosen as thevenue for his speech in part because itwas near Mathew Bradys photographicshop—a proximity that permitted rapiddistribution of pamphlets illustratedwith a photograph of young Lincoln, hishigh collar pulled up to conceal thelength of his neck. Mr. Clintons speech was receivedwith something approaching rapture, acircumstance that may partly be explainedby a general state of excitement amongseveral dozen architecture students, who,to their joy, had been made to evacuatethe building that morning in the middleof their final exams: there had been thetraditional Presidential bomb scare. BIBLIOPHILE DR. UMBERTO ECO was in town theother day, peddling one of hisdifficult books. He said some of themwere extremely serious (there are thirteenin all), and he didnt expect they wouldbe widely or quickly read. This didntbother him particularly. He said that hehimself hadnt read War and
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