Read a note from Executive Director Teddy Gross on how the Penny Harvest Field moved from idea to reality:

SEEDS OF THE FIELD
In the beginning years of the Penny Harvest, we periodically would celebrate the climax with a day of service called “Field Day.” Spilling out sack after sack on large tables in a big room, children and families would sort the pennies from the silver, trash, foreign coin, and cash. Finally, after a long day, an armored truck would pull up, and we’d get a relay going of “clean coins” to the curb.

As our numbers grew, the room for Field Days also grew: from a gym, to the old Coliseum on 59th Street, then to the largest convention hall at the Javits Center. And the name changed, too. With a thousand volunteers sorting half a million dollars, the daylong event became a “Tonathon.”

Common Cents Tonathons are still fondly remembered by the volunteers who took part. Yes, sorting tablefuls of coins was hard work, and our hands got plenty dirty. But to work together in a huge room alongside New Yorkers of every age made it worthwhile. Those frenzied hours infused us with an exhilarating sense of that over-used, but under-experienced idea: community. After one Tonathon I remember Nora (my daughter) saying, “Until I saw all those people and pennies, I never knew what I was part of!”

Eventually, the Penny Harvest outgrew the Tonathons. After a final blow-out success in 2002, we reluctantly discontinued the event and began the hunt for some new way to actually give our children – and all of us – the same culminating experience of belonging.

FROM JAR TO FIELD
One day nursing a cold, I woke up from a feverish dream with a story title: Elgin’s Jar. Who was Elgin, and what is his jar? I had no idea. But I decided to find out by starting a storybook – and also decided to explore the possibility of a real jar to replace the Tonathon.

With help from many friends, I crisscrossed the city meeting experts and artists, developers and officials. Everyone loved the idea and offered to help. Eventually a spectacular team came together to answer the four big questions: how, where, what, and when?

How? To build a great jar would require a great engineer. Luckily Mort Friedman, the eminent Columbia engineering professor, referred me to one of his most able alumni, Peter DiMaggio at Weidlinger. As a firm, Weidlinger’s experience ranges from building Noguchi’s “Bolt of Lightning” sculpture in Philadelphia to fortified post-9/11 embassies around the world, so I knew the project would be in good hands. But I wasn’t prepared for the unflagging enthusiasm and generosity that I instantly received from Peter and his colleague Scott Schneider. (For the record, Weidlinger eventually insisted on full payment for its services – one dollar!)

Where? If you were placing a gigantic penny jar in New York during Christmas, wouldn’t you want it within walking distance of Rockefeller Center’s Christmas Tree? That was my thinking when, one Sunday morning in early 2004, some friends and I drove through midtown – down Fifth, up Sixth, and up and down Park – looking at setback and parks that might hold a monstrous container. Awhile later, I was sharing the results of that trip with an old friend, Gardner Dunnan, who caused my jaw to drop by saying, “Why not put the Jar in Rockefeller Center – beside the famous Christmas Tree itself?”

Gardner made some phone calls, and within a few weeks a conversation began with Tishman Speyer, the development firm that manages the great New York landmark. In the spring of 2005, Tom Madden, the mastermind of Rockefeller Plaza, listened to our idea of a gathering place for the children’s penny harvest. Before answering, Tom asked one question: how many public schools are involved? My reply (at the time it was 700 schools) was all he needed before saying yes to putting the Penny Harvest in Rockefeller Center.

What? But inside what? For that we needed an architect: and for months, I searched for a person with that rare combination of virtues: vision, interest, and a willingness to work for nothing. Finally via board member Maggie Williams, I got to meet the renowned architect James Polshek. With me I brought a one-pager describing the concept and naming the partners who had already signed on. Beside the architect slot, we had put “TBD.” As the meeting ended, Jim handed back the one-pager, and said: “Well, I guess you can take the TBD off architect.”

With Jim on board, we now had all the firepower we needed to figure out just how to house a hundred million pennies. But a bombshell went off at the first meeting of the principals in the spring of 2006. For the first time, Peter and the engineers for Tishman Speyer discussed weight-loads on the streets of Rockefeller Center. Even to lay people such as me, the problem instantly became obvious. Rockefeller Plaza actually is a roof – a thin roof – over the underground mall. The Penny Harvest Jar, at a diameter of thirty feet, would still tower forty feet high. At that height, it would exert pressure of over a thousand pounds per square foot, well beyond the maximum weight-load, and enough to send the jar crashing into the stores below. Very dispiriting news.

But even as I witnessed my cherished idea of a Penny Jar die, I felt a resurgent sense of optimism and comfort. Sitting around the table was a team with imagination and commitment, and I knew they would somehow figure out another way to do it. And they did.