The front-page New York Times article about David Geffen's $100 million gift to Lincoln Center, which will rename Avery Fisher Hall as David Geffen Hall, touches on Mr. Geffen's New York ties:
Mr. Geffen's gift may signal a renewed commitment to New York, where he has kept an apartment since 1976 and where he started his career at William Morris — though Mr. Geffen said he has always maintained his connection to the city.
"I'm a kid from Brooklyn," he said. "I love New York."
But the article does not deal with the question of whether Mr. Geffen pays New York City income taxes. If he avoids them by living in California, the money he has saved over the years, compounded, could well amount to more than the $100 million donation. Another way to look at it is that the pied-a-terre tax floated by Mayor de Blasio and greeted very receptively by the Partnership for New York City could actually serve to discourage connections like Mr. Geffen's, which can pay off spectacularly, if unexpectedly, down the line for the city in ways like the Lincoln Center Geffen gift.
Also left unexplored is the question of whether Mr. Geffen's "renewed commitment to New York" has anything to do with the tax increase in California that, according to the New York Times, put that state's top marginal combined federal and state rate at 51.9%, higher than New York City's 51.7%.