|
|
|
|
|
|
J. Carter Brown
Director Emeritus
National Gallery of Art
Harvard offered me to skip freshman year, and I thought that wasn't the point. And so, then when I was in a closer range to my classmates, I was a happy camper. God! I found that it wasn't so oddball to like music and poetry and visual arts, and there were kindred spirits there. I was in dramatics, I was president of the Harvard Glee Club -- which was the nearest thing to a professional organization -- as an undergraduate. We sang as the chosen chorus in those days of the Boston Symphony. We toured. We sang in Carnegie Hall, we recorded with RCA and won the Grand Prize for our Berlioz, sang all the great literature -- the Bach B minor, and the Passions, and Beethoven. I mean it was a fabulous opportunity. Three rehearsals a week, 50 concerts a year, and then the final summer a European tour, which was the first time since right after World War I that they'd done it. So, we were embraced with open arms by the Europeans, and we sang for the Pope in St. Peter's, and in Royal Albert Hall, and the Music Festival in Holland, and then Berlin over the radio. That was very rewarding to be there with a purpose, not just rubbernecking. We really felt needed and doing something for America and for Harvard, and also for ourselves.
View Interview with J. Carter Brown
View Biography of J. Carter Brown
View Profile of J. Carter Brown
View Photo Gallery of J. Carter Brown
|
|
J. Carter Brown
Director Emeritus
National Gallery of Art
Retrospectively, I guess my greatest sense of satisfaction is the East Building of the National Gallery. Again: luck and timing. I was there when we had this extraordinary donor in Paul Mellon, and helped choose an extraordinary architect, I.M. Pei, with whom I worked for 10 years on this project. And to have it voted by the rank and file of the American Institute of Architects as one of the ten best American buildings of all time is rather satisfying and, people have voted with their feet. They come in there, you watch them as they enter the building, and you watch that jaw drop, and they put their finger on the name of the architect that's carved in the wall. We can't now get the oils out, we just leave it. And, people are enriched by what goes on there, and by the experience of being there. So, that does give one a certain sense of satisfaction of being a small part. I was one of a whole number of people who made that happen, but luckily I was part of it.
View Interview with J. Carter Brown
View Biography of J. Carter Brown
View Profile of J. Carter Brown
View Photo Gallery of J. Carter Brown
|
|
Willie Brown
Former Mayor of San Francisco
I started getting cases dismissed on the basis of selective prosecution. One of the first times anybody ever used that, I think. And that was very exciting for me, and it was one of the steps that I could tell you that turned what was my job into a magical set of circumstances. Because the word spread throughout the hooker community: "There's a guy down there on Sutter Street who has come up with something that keeps us out of jail. Gets our cases dismissed." And it was fun to watch the delight on these peoples' faces, particularly when they could pay you a hundred bucks in cash, offer you something in trade, in return for having represented them. It was like magic, and I loved it.
View Interview with Willie Brown
View Biography of Willie Brown
View Profile of Willie Brown
View Photo Gallery of Willie Brown
|
| |
