Category: issues

As Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York City Council agreed on a budget last night, “city officials said that they were able to minimize cuts to what they said were their top priorities — firehouses, child-care workers and libraries — though they were less successful in the areas of health care, police training and the arts. … Full details are expected to be released in the next few days, and the City Council is scheduled to vote on the budget on Thursday or Friday.”

“The new Dwyer Cultural Center, with a series of public programs that begin Tuesday, hopes to stake its claim in the neighborhood with exhibitions, performances, workshops and other events designed specifically to showcase Harlem’s history, and to support its established and future artists. The $3 million, 7,000-square-foot Dwyer Cultural Center, at 258 St. Nicholas Avenue (at 123rd Street), is emblematic in some ways of the latest Harlem Renaissance.”

“[F]or local cultural institutions, the parking issue goes beyond simple matters of increased rates and hours. Getting folks to come out to your entertainment venue involves convincing them that they’re going to enjoy themselves, but no one enjoys stressing out about parking, and that stress has become increasingly difficult to escape.”

“Could the creative industries provide innovative models which will make this sector not just resilient in the current economic climate, but allow it to flourish? There are economists who think this is happening already. Recent research from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta) suggests that the cultural sector will grow by 4% between 2009 and 2013 – double the estimate for the rest of the economy.”

“Music and art instruction in American eighth-grade classrooms has remained flat over the last decade, according to a new survey by the Department of Education, and one official involved in the survey called student achievement in those subjects ‘mediocre.’ The survey, released on Monday, was conducted as part of a nationwide test of music and arts achievement administered last year.”

“A formidable list of architects — including Richard Rogers, Jean Nouvel, Djamel Klouche and Roland Castro — put forward proposals that address a range of urban problems: from housing the poor to fixing outdated transportation systems to renewing the immigrant suburbs. Some have suggested practical solutions — new train stations and parks — while others have been more provocative, like Castro, who proposed moving the presidential palace to the outskirts.”

“In a ceremony next month, Chicago’s 110-storey Sears Tower which, at 442 metres (1,450ft), is the tallest building in North America, will be rechristened as the Willis Tower in a multimillion-dollar naming rights deal. The locals are not impressed. An online petition condemning the change has attracted 33,000 signatures.”

“The use of social media as a marketing tool is fast becoming a key means for cash-strapped organizations not only to spread the word about offerings but also to heighten their “cool” quotients and attract Web-savvy patrons who might otherwise view the groups as stodgy or impersonal.”

“There’s a generational and gender change slowly sweeping across the boards of Australia’s major arts bodies. Once seen from the outside as clubby, pass-the-gin-and-tonic sinecures for successful businessmen and wealthy donors to rub first-night shoulders with artists and to network with politicians, arts company boards are getting serious.”

In New York, 11 diverse downtown arts organizations “have come together to forge a collective and active response to the grim economic climate. Calling themselves the Lower Manhattan Arts Leaders, they meet once a week to plan strategy and exchange ideas about helping government policy makers and grant-making foundations become aware of the vital ways in which small arts groups feed the life of a neighborhood.”