This hall was where Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama spoke and the labor movement gathered to organized workers on the lower east side.
And this hall was where one late afternoon we offered remembrance for the dead and requests to begin the year as a newborn. Unburdened by habits once practical, now outgrown, we could look up to the gates to heaven and before they closed for another year call out an artist's prayer.
Let me hear You, when I hear my spirit roaring in prayer.
May I sing because I love,
not afraid to waste my sweetness upon the void
but reflecting in my soul's flight
the Universal God who sings through me.
A new year, a new year, l'shana tova, a new year.
