Making New Year’s a Capital Event

Everybody in Washington knows how to celebrate if it’s the Fourth of July or a presidential inauguration. At times like that, the nation’s capital is a natural center of gravity for fireworks, a gala--or a cortege if it’s a state funeral.

But marking an event that happens every 1,000 years initially seemed to have the White House stumped. After all, the center of gravity for New Year’s Eve is New York’s Times Square, where, indeed, gravity has brought down a ball at midnight every year-end since 1904.

For this historic and hysterical Y2K, White House planners wanted to create something that would seem dignified and distinctive and therefore merit special attention. A political operative who was around for the early planning characterized the discussions:

“They were impelled by an attitude of ‘We have to do something. Anything.’ But what and how and where and, of course, why, well, nobody quite knew.”

What the planners clearly realized was that they could capitalize on the city’s marbled glory--a place where, when Americans are dreaming about the future, they can be reminded of the past.

And they are giving it the full Washington treatment, with a lot of Clintonian glitz and fund-raising muscle thrown in. The New Year’s weekend will have features of every grand occasion rolled into one, with fireworks, a gala, egghead seminars, family-oriented shows, VIP dancing-and-dessert at the White House and, of course, the ingenuity to pay a $13-million tab. (The Lincoln Bedroom is not for sale.)

The producers of the New Year’s Eve show, longtime Washington impresario George Stevens Jr. and musician Quincy Jones, picked the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as the stage for the three hours of entertainment to be aired at 10 p.m. PST (tape-delayed) on CBS.

Organizers chose the space between the Lincoln and Washington monuments because it confers “a sense of the nation’s history,” Stevens said. “It’s been the stage for many of our pivotal moments, and we think this will be one more.”

Indeed, much history has taken place there, such as Marian Anderson’s 1939 concert after she was denied access to Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech.

(If the capital’s infamous midwinter weather permits, the gala could draw, in addition to the president, first lady and 3,000 VIPs, as many as 100,000 regular folk bundled on the grass around the Reflecting Pool. However, it is important to remember at such times the canaries that froze to death in 1873 in huge tents constructed along the Mall for Ulysses S. Grant’s inaugural and that Ronald Reagan’s second inaugural parade was canceled because it was so cold there was fear that the lips of high school buglers would freeze to their instruments.)

As for the competition with that ubiquitous dropping ball--Waterford Crystal is debuting a new one with 504 glass triangles and 600 halogen lights--the Washington planners are not saying much except that their fireworks and light display accompanied by a symphony could be, well, better.

“We’re not wishing to create a rivalry with New York, but our Midnight Moment will be as interesting or more than a ball dropping,” Stevens said. “There is going to be a count up, not a count down, and a visual display that will make one think of aspiration and uplifting thoughts.” (The plan is for President Clinton to light a very long fuse at 11:59:50 that will run all the way from the Lincoln to the Washington Monument, where it will ignite a pyrotechnic blast that runs 555 feet up the west face of the Washington Monument and sets off waterfalls of candlepower.)

The search for hot talent to perform at the Lincoln Memorial was apparently a challenge because planners were competing in a high-paying market and paying only scale wages. In addition, they started a tad late.

Ultimately, they landed Will Smith as host and a wide range of performers, including Trisha Yearwood, BeBe Winans, Kathleen Battle and the cast of “Stomp.” And this just in: The first lady announced Wednesday that Don McLean, Kathy Mattea, Bobby McFerrin and Kenny Rogers will be joining the big act, which includes a brief address to the nation by the president about five minutes before midnight.

One bit of planning the White House did early was to line up Steven Spielberg, who has been busy in his Hollywood editing room creating an 18-minute film that will be shown along with an original John Williams score starting about 11:30 p.m. The Clintons began talking to Spielberg about the project two summers ago, and he turned to several prominent historians and documentary filmmakers to get his juices going.

“Everyone is expecting another documentary with the usual montage of history,” said Spielberg’s spokesman, Marvin Levy, who has not viewed the work in progress. “But I can tell you it isn’t. It’s really a look at the spirit and growth of America’s past and with a look to the future. It’ll be like nothing you’ve ever seen.”

The White House planners as recently as September had visions of tented pavilions set up on the National Mall, similar to those used during Clinton’s two inaugurations, so families could spend the New Year’s weekend going from musical performance to millennial lectures in warm tents. (The weekend is expected to draw up to 1 million visitors and area residents to the downtown museums as well as a street fair planned by the city along Constitution Avenue.)

But the costs were too high, so the programs were downsized and moved inside to nice but much smaller areas in four Smithsonian Institution museums. Tickets to these free events--ranging from basketball stars Chamique Holdsclaw and Nikki McCray discussing their games to musical giant B.B. King singing the blues--were snapped up in a matter of hours last weekend.

And speaking of money, the Clintons have turned to their fund-raising wizard, Terry McAuliffe, to go back to the well of private and corporate donors who have coughed up the cash to back the first family for the last eight years for so many other Democratic National Committee, electoral and public events. So far the fund-raisers have commitments for $11 million of the $13 million needed.

It was not an easy sell, according to people familiar with the fund-raising. In this season of the presidential campaign--and of course, the first lady’s own run for a New York Senate seat--there is a lot of competition for political dollars. But 48 individual and corporate donors have come through.

“These are all friends who we deal with all the time,” said a fund-raising source, who explained that people gave $50,000 to $1-million gifts because they were sold on “the experience--dinner at the White House on New Year’s Eve, sitting there watching the Spielberg film at the Lincoln Memorial, visibility at an important national moment.”

Before the big show, the White House is giving those big donors a big fancy dinner, though they are not the main attraction of the 320-person meal. The “creators” dinner includes 100 luminaries of American culture and science, from Muhammad Ali to Itzhak Perlman to Neil Simon.