New York ? High above Central Park, around midnight, a saxophone player jams to Thelonious Monk, his riffs stroking the curved bamboo walls of a new jazz club. The lights of Manhattan glow through the picture window behind the stage.

Suddenly, a sparrow flutters by on the other side of the glass.

This is Jazz at Lincoln Center in its new home at Columbus Circle, at the edge of Central Park, the first complex devoted to America’s original music. A few blocks up Broadway, on Manhattan’s West Side, the main campus of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts spreads over 16 acres.

The world’s largest arts mecca has grown artistically from the symphonic music, opera, ballet and theater that were its bedrock when it opened in the 1960s to today’s embrace of every style from Handel to hip-hop.

Web-based technology is being used to lure new audiences to such acts as the indie rock band Yo La Tengo, who will perform at a May concert while screens flash underwater footage by oceanographer Jean Painleve. In July, audiences can catch Senegalese rappers Daara J.

And for the first time in its history, Lincoln Center will celebrate gay pride week with a variety of events in June starring Patti Labelle, Cyndi Lauper, Mario Cantone, Charles Busch and others. An evening of gay and lesbian literature titled “In Search of Family” includes Pulitzer-winning playwright Paula Vogel.

With jazz after midnight and late-morning, breakfast concerts of classical music, Lincoln Center is evolving into an almost “24-7” performing arts hub, says Reynold Levy, president of Lincoln Center Inc., the umbrella group for the center’s dozen arts organizations.

Change in leadership

As it adds edgy creativity to its mainstream fare, the center is expanding culturally and physically. It also has enlarged its board of directors to include leaders in nonartistic fields raising money from donors who might never before have given to the arts.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, top center, is joined by Bruce Crawford, left, chairman of Lincoln Center Inc., and Reynold Levy, right, president of the Lincoln Center, at a press conference in April at the Lincoln Center in New York. Plans were unveiled for a 75 million upgrade of Lincoln Center facilities.

In January, one-time opera star Beverly Sills quit as chairman of the Metropolitan Opera, to be replaced by longtime arts benefactor Christine Hunter. At 75, Sills cited health and family reasons. Also leaving is the Met’s general manager, Joseph Volpe. His successor is Peter Gelb, a Sony recording executive who will start working alongside Volpe from August until Volpe leaves next year.

Bruce Crawford, the 75-year-old chairman of Lincoln Center Inc., is relinquishing his post in June.

During their tenures, Sills, Volpe and Crawford helped present innovative programs that could only be imagined when the cluster of buildings was first erected on the one-time slum of the urban gangs that were the inspiration for Leonard Bernstein’s musical “West Side Story.”

Last season, for example, the floor of Avery Fisher Hall, the New York Philharmonic’s home, was turned into an overnight campground for spectators to “The Veil of the Temple,” John Tavener’s seven-hour, Eastern chant-inspired piece. Breakfast was served outdoors at sunrise. On another night in that hall, Elvis Costello thrilled rock fans, some dancing in front of the stage.

Tough times

Lincoln Center is emerging from a period of gloomy uncertainty following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which put a squeeze on ticket sales and fund raising while some of the center’s executives bickered over ideas for the renovation of the aging campus.

Soprano Renee Fleming performs with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in 2001 at Lincoln Center's Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse in New York. Fleming, one of the world's most-acclaimed singers, delivered a crossover program of Broadway tunes, jazz, country and opera.

Adding to the tumult was the Philharmonic’s sudden announcement in 2003 that it was moving to Carnegie Hall, only to backtrack after the plan failed because of Carnegie’s conflicting needs. Another constituent, New York City Opera, has yet to decide whether to renovate or move.

But the renewal plans are finally “on track,” Levy said. “There’s been a bounce-back since 9/11.”

Preliminary work is to start later this year on the first $475 million project that will transform West 65th Street, which runs through the middle of the campus, into a grassy, open area with a glassed-in restaurant and more outdoors seating.

“We have spaces in which artists perform with more than 22,000 seats … more than Madison Square Garden. And we’re having a better season than the Knicks!” joked Levy, who expanded the center’s board from 49 to 58.

The center’s push to attract new audiences has resulted in $20 student tickets for best-available seats. There was an increase last season of about 25 percent in such sales.

Audience development also includes a program to reach potential spectators by e-mail. They may then opt to receive more information and buy tickets — or ask that they not be contacted again.

“That way, we can take advantage of the fact that, increasingly, people are not buying tickets till the last minute. So this way, we end up with full houses,” says Nancy Wolf, a marketing expert for Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Lincoln Center Inc., with an annual operating budget of more than $500,000, combines a dozen arts organizations that have a $1.5 billion economic impact on the New York City area — money spent on tickets, taxis, restaurants, shops and so on, according to an independent study by the Boston-based Economic Development Research Group.

“What our audiences are telling us is that what appears on the stage is not their only experience,” Levy says. “There’s also what they do before and after the event — having a cup of coffee or a drink and relaxing, having places to sit, to just hang out together.”

As for the actual performances, “we want to keep Lincoln Center on the cutting edge. We want to have surprises for audiences — things they’re unlikely to hear or see elsewhere,” says Levy.