- Sarah Crean on Exclusive: Proposed policy would allow industries to self-audit pollution-generating activities
- David Howard King on Bronx senator's health quest
- Cristian Salazar and Carla Murphy on Stops lawsuit given class status
- Cristian Salazar on NYC Council passes banking bill
- David Howard King on Senate Dems Look to Nat'l Issues
News about Arts:
Links to web sites, articles or reports that illuminate the most recent Arts news.
Broadway, Metropolitan Museum Reopen (Crain's, Nov 1, 2012)
Koch Captured in Documentary (NY Times, Oct 26, 2012)
Officials reach agreement on 9/11 Memorial Museum (WNYC, Sep 11, 2012)
Searching for answers after violence mars parade (NY Times, Sep 5, 2012)
NASA to broadcast Mars rover landing live in Times Square (MSNBC, Aug 1, 2012)
Cuomo signs law expanding tax credits for film and television industry (Daily News, Jul 25, 2012)
Deal near on stalled 9/11 museum (Associated Press, Jun 6, 2012)
Heated Debate Over Library Plan (Capital, May 24, 2012)
New Librarians, Curators from Controversial Renovation Plan Cash (Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2012)
TV, Film Industry Brings Windfall to New York, Mayor Says (Reuters, May 9, 2012)
City’s Film, Television Crews Keep Busy Thanks to Pilot Season, Tax Credit (WNYC, Apr 12, 2012)
U.S. Sen. Okie Blocks 9/11 Museum Funding (NY Post, Feb 2, 2012)
Issue Project Room Finally Taking Full Residence in Downtown Brooklyn (Wall Street Journal, Dec 21, 2011)
Window Fixtures of Rougher Days Come Down (NY Times, Dec 13, 2011)
At Top Public Schools, the Arts Replace Recess (NY Times, Dec 7, 2011)
Nonprofit Offers Plan for Forest Hills Tennis Stadium (Daily News, Nov 5, 2011)
Turning Empty Spaces Into Cultural Pop-Ups (MetroFocus, Nov 2, 2011)
City Buildings Feature a New Emphasis on Architecture (NY Times, Oct 11, 2011)
Bloomberg Wants Emmys to Come to New York (Staten Island Advance, Sep 20, 2011)
Restaurant Owners Lament Lost Business (NY Post, Aug 27, 2011)
A Record 23 Shows Being Shot in City (Daily News, Aug 23, 2011)
Documentary Traces the City's Mosaic of Accents (Wall Street Journal, Aug 12, 2011)
Brooklyn Public Library Expanding its Hours (Daily News, Aug 11, 2011)
Record Number of TV Shows Film in New York (NY Post, Jul 31, 2011)
In Alliance, Nets Arena to Offer Arts (NY Times, Jun 30, 2011)
New Cinema for North Brooklyn (WNYC, Jun 24, 2011)
Police Department to Probe Inmate's Confession of Tupac Shooting in '94 (Associated Press, Jun 16, 2011)
Museum of Modern Art to Buy Folk Art Building (Wall Street Journal, May 11, 2011)
Detained Chinese Artist Misses His New York Unveiling (Wall Street Journal, May 5, 2011)
Artist Uses Fake Government Stickers to Raise Concern Over Water (Wall Street Journal, Apr 29, 2011)
Charging New York Public Library Mishandled Papers, Writer Wants Them Back (NY Times, Apr 24, 2011)
Development Plans May Doom 5Pointz, a Street Art Icon (Daily News, Mar 7, 2011)
Harlem's National Black Theater Faces Debt, Foreclosure (NY Times, Feb 1, 2011)
Queens Lawmakers Offer $500 for Graffiti Tips (Daily News, Jan 27, 2011)
Suddenly, SoHo Heeds Law Limiting Lofts to Artists (NY Times, Nov 12, 2010)
Ground Zero Waterfall Memorial Tested (NY Post, Nov 11, 2010)
Exhibit Looks at an Architect's Vision of a Never-Built Manhattan Expressway (The New Yorker, Nov 10, 2010)
Loft Tenants Instead Find Grief Instead of Protection Under New Law (NY Times, Nov 4, 2010)
Real Estate Bust Can be a Boon for Arts (Wall Street Journal, Oct 29, 2010)
Hotel Chelsea Up for Sale (Associated Press, Oct 20, 2010)
Children's Museum Planned for Harlem (Crain's, Oct 6, 2010)
Amherst College President to Head Library (NY Times, Oct 6, 2010)
Art Vendors in Parks Get a Reprieve (NY Times, Aug 31, 2010)
Last Hip Hop Record Store Closes (Daily News, Aug 19, 2010)
Homeland Security Awards Millions to Protect Area Religious, Cultural Sites (NY 1, Jul 18, 2010)
Renovation of City Hall Will Try to Fix Dangerous Decay (Associated Press, Jul 18, 2010)
Judge Refuses to Block City's New Limits on Arts Vendors (NY Times, Jul 17, 2010)
Art and Music Funding Drops 70 Percent (Daily News, Jul 1, 2010)
Deal Could Open Way for Arts Center at Ground Zero (NY Times, Jun 23, 2010)
Arts Groups Remain Vulnerable (Crain's, May 27, 2010)
Whitney to Move Downtown (Wall Street Journal, May 26, 2010)
City Seeks Developer for Jazz Museum in Harlem (Crain's, May 25, 2010)
Efforts Mount to Save 'Law and Order' (am New York, May 19, 2010)
Queens Library Could Shut 14 Branches (Daily News, May 19, 2010)
Remake of Metropolitan Museum Fountains Planned (Wall Street Journal, Apr 30, 2010)
Brooklyn's Top Librarian Quits After Layoff Plan Goes Public (Daily News, Mar 9, 2010)
Architects Design for a Warmer, Wetter New York (New York Magazine, Mar 2, 2010)
Inside the Beefy Heart of the Meatpacking District (am New York, Feb 11, 2010)
Governor's Plan Would Extend Film Tax Credit (Crain's, Jan 20, 2010)
Bloomberg Renewed City's Focus on the Arts (Gotham Gazette, Nov 2, 2009)
Council Approves MoMA Tower (am New York, Oct 29, 2009)
Economic Development Plans for Cultural Dector (Bloomberg, Oct 5, 2009)
City Unveils Effort to Support Artists (Crain's, Oct 1, 2009)
Lack of Radio Frequencies Encourages Pirate Radio (El Taxista, Sep 24, 2009)
Lower Manhattan Developer Leases Land to Artists (Crain's, Sep 14, 2009)
Trinity Real Estate, which manages Trinity Wall Street’s six million square feet of commercial real estate, is donating an entire city block to the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council for about three years.
New York State Pavilion May be Too Structurally Unsound to Landmark (Daily News, Sep 14, 2009)
The Board for Historic Preservation is expected to vote on the Queens pavilion at a hearing that starts tomorrow. Some figure the city craves grants that come with state landmark status, but fears the state Board for Historic Preservation would deny a designation if it knew key parts of the three-tower pavilion are beyond saving.
The New Arts Funding Process (, Aug 27, 2009)
The city's new arts funding process has created a more level playing field for organizations seeking money, according to the Independent Budget Office.
Transportation Department Sanctioned Street Art Appears (NY Post, Aug 27, 2009)
Port Authority Says Waterfalls WIll Be Ready by 10th Anniversary (Daily News, Aug 20, 2009)
Whitney Museum makes Staff Cuts (Crain's, Aug 15, 2009)
The Whitney Museum of American Art has quietly laid off 4% of its staff, in an effort to cut costs during the recession. A total of eight full- and part-time employees lost their jobs, bringing the museum’s headcount down to 205, a spokesman said. The cuts include a major gifts officer, a senior lecturer in education and an adjunct curator of architecture.
What's Wrong With NYC-TV? (Village Voice, Aug 5, 2009)
Movie Stars Coming to Broadway This Fall (Crain's, Jul 27, 2009)
Milan Surpassing New York as Fashion Capital (AM New York, Jul 21, 2009)
'Angela's Ashes' Author Frank McCourt Dies at 78 (Daily News, Jul 20, 2009)
Frank McCourt, author of the 1996 Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir "Angela's Ashes," detailing a childhood of Irish squalor and eventual New York salvation, died Sunday. He had been gravely ill with meningitis after being treated for melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.
A Bronx Tree Museum (New Yorker, Jul 13, 2009)
Brooklyn Opera Company Flounders (Crain's, Jul 11, 2009)
The tiny but critically acclaimed Opera Company of Brooklyn is at risk of going under.
City Modifying Film Tax-Credit Plan (Crain's, May 28, 2009)
Despite Recession, Broadway Sets Record (Associated Press, May 27, 2009)
Art Galleries Still Strong (Crain's, May 24, 2009)
Despite the tumbling art market, New York’s gallery scene is holding up quite well. In the last 12 months, around 25 out of an estimated 388 galleries in Chelsea have shuttered, according to Chelseaartgalleries.com. But during the same period, at least 10 new galleries have opened, and more are on their way.
Michelle Obama Shows Support of Arts in New York (Daily News, May 19, 2009)
Graffiti Group Takes on Ads (Metro, May 7, 2009)
Students Band Together in Music Class (Daily News, Apr 29, 2009)
When no one else would do it, a Queens 11 year old stepped up to lead band class at PS 37.
Opera Strike in the Offing? (Bloomberg, Apr 29, 2009)
South Williamsburg Reprieve from Film Shoots (Brooklyn Papers, Apr 2, 2009)
Thanksgiving Parade Could Move Off Broadway (NY Post, Mar 29, 2009)
City Hall is floating the idea of moving the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade off Broadway.
Galleries Flourish in Bushwick (NY Times, Mar 7, 2009)
TV Shows Look to Leave City (Crain's, Feb 13, 2009)
Planting a Flag for Clubland in the Garment District? (Chelsea Now, Feb 13, 2009)
Television Production Stalls Out in City (Crain's, Feb 5, 2009)
Theater Executives Protest Proposed Ticket Tax (Daily News, Feb 4, 2009)
City Sees Benefits From Movie Breaks (NY Times, Jan 28, 2009)
Proposed Budget Shuts Out Zoos, Aquariums and Gardens (NY Times, Jan 22, 2009)
Brooklyn Academy of Music Plans Major Expansion (Crain's, Jan 20, 2009)
Amazon.com Loses Tax Fight in Court with State (Metro, Jan 15, 2009)
More Layoffs at Architecture Firms Likely as Projects Dry Up (Real Deal, Jan 8, 2009)
Arts Groups Cut Back (Crain's, Jan 2, 2009)
Plan Would Tax Music, Video Downloads (, Dec 17, 2008)
The governor wants to begin taxing music and movie downloads as part of an effort to plug the budget gap - a move New Yorkers say will only make piracy more appealing.
Why Love New York? (New York Magazine, Dec 16, 2008)
Making Artistic Connections at New Subway Station (, Dec 14, 2008)
Quality-of-Life Crimes a Harbinger of Things to Come? (AM New York, Nov 20, 2008)
Bushwick Looms as the 'Next Big Place' for Art (Washington Post, Nov 16, 2008)
Arts Funding Still Matters (NY Post, Nov 11, 2008)
Mayors Awards go to Mayors Grantees (NY Times, Nov 11, 2008)
The prestigious Mayor’s Award, which honors organizations for contributions to the city’s cultural life, often goes to charities that the Mayor privately donates to.
The Intrepid's Million Dollar Makeover (Daily News, Nov 10, 2008)
Melting Ice Sculpture on Wall Street of the Word 'Economy' (AM New York, Oct 30, 2008)
Graveyard of Indie Retailers Growing (Crain's, Oct 23, 2008)
Waterfalls Beat Expectations, Mayor Says (Associated Press, Oct 22, 2008)
Ground Broken for Expansion of Astoria Movie Studio (WNYC, Oct 21, 2008)
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Will Run Artists’ Space on Governors Island (NY Times, Oct 19, 2008)
The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council has been selected to run an artists’ studio and exhibition space on Governors Island that will include a year-round artist residency and weekend events.
Ads on Garbage Trucks? City May Go There (AM New York, Oct 16, 2008)
Only 8 Percent of Elementary Schools Meet Art Requirements (NY Post, Oct 16, 2008)
Plans to Open Trade Center Memorial on 10th Anniversary (NY Post, Sep 26, 2008)
Tree Houses Latest Public Art Show (AM New York, Sep 24, 2008)
Cultural Organizations Need Disaster Preparedness Help (NY Sun, Sep 23, 2008)
Expansion is Sought for Film Production Tax Credits (NY Sun, Sep 17, 2008)
City and state legislators are calling for an expansion of the city's film tax credit and the creation of a post-production tax credit as a means to bring more movie industry jobs to the city.
Wall Street Woes Endanger Funding for the Arts (NY Sun, Sep 16, 2008)
Design for 9/11 Memorial and Museum Announced (Newsday, Sep 10, 2008)
A Look at New York's New Glass Skyline (New York Magazine, Sep 7, 2008)
As this last great building boom winds down, one architecture critic asks: Does the new see-through city look better or worse than the one it replaced? A building-by-building survey.
Waterfalls to Gush Forth for Fewer Hours (NY Post, Aug 31, 2008)
Brooklyn Artist Discusses Detention in Chinese Prison (Brooklyn Papers, Aug 29, 2008)
Complaints About Waterfall Damage Multiply (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Aug 22, 2008)
McCarren Pool Parties in Come to an End (Metro, Aug 22, 2008)
The Overhaul of 2 Columbus Circle (New Yorker, Aug 19, 2008)
Guantanamo Theme at Coney Island Sideshow (Associated Press, Aug 7, 2008)
New York's Vanishing Signs (AM New York, Jul 9, 2008)
Historical Society Drops Controversial Condo Plan (NY Times, Jul 9, 2008)
Councilman Blasts New Graffiti Store (AM New York, Jul 2, 2008)
The spray paint is barely dry on Brooklyn's new graffiti-art supply store, but street artists -- and a fiercely critical councilman -- are already clashing.
Cultural Groups Lose Security Money (NY Post, Jun 29, 2008)
Almost $4 million in city money doled out to museums, playhouses, and other cultural groups to protect their collections was slashed from the $59.1 billion budget Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Council agreed on last week.
High Line to Open by Year's End (NY 1, Jun 26, 2008)
After The Gates, The Falls (New York Magazine, Jun 11, 2008)
Graffitists Seek Fame by Tagging in New York City (Newsday, Jun 10, 2008)
Lighting Ceremony for Newtown Creek Sewage Plant (WNYC, Jun 6, 2008)
More Movies Made in New York (Daily News, May 18, 2008)
Washington Heights Cheers Tony Nominations (Daily News, May 14, 2008)
Poetry Readings at the Union Square Cafe (New York Magazine, May 6, 2008)
New Whitney Museum for Meatpacking District (NY Post, May 2, 2008)
Community Fights for Harlem Victoria Theater (AM New York, Apr 16, 2008)
New Design for Queens Museum of Art (Daily News, Apr 15, 2008)
Trade Center Museum Reaches Fundraising Goal (Associated Press, Apr 10, 2008)
Proposal Would Relocate Arts Center to Transit Hub (NY Times, Apr 10, 2008)
Midtown Residents to Pritzker Winner: Nice Try, Nouvel! (The Real Estate, Apr 9, 2008)
In the Tent of Tomorrow, a Faded Map of Yesteryear (NY Times, Apr 7, 2008)
Queens Police Make City's Largest Counterfeit Bust (NY 1, Apr 4, 2008)
Does Ticket Scalping Law Shut Out Fans? (AM New York, Apr 2, 2008)
Activists To Protest Brooklyn Museum's Ratner Nod (The Real Estate, Apr 1, 2008)
When the Art is Gone on Brooklyn's Union Street (Gowanus Lounge, Apr 1, 2008)
Police Give Local Artist the Reaction He Was Angling For (Village Voice, Apr 1, 2008)
Freelancer's Office Collective in Downtown Brooklyn Tries to Go Green (Brownstoner, Mar 28, 2008)
City's Indie Music Scene Can be Heard Now on WNYE (Daily News, Mar 24, 2008)
What Will Be Left of Gehry’s Vision for Brooklyn? (NY Times, Mar 21, 2008)
Thefts Cause Chelsea Galleries to Rethink Security (City Room, Mar 14, 2008)
Community Board Votes Against MoMA Tower; Development Enthusiasts Counter With Petition (The Real Estate, Mar 14, 2008)
A $100 Million Donation to the NY Public Library (NY Times, Mar 11, 2008)
Big Visions for Building Don’t Include People Inside (NY Times, Mar 10, 2008)
Stuck in Traffic? A Sculpture Park May Ease the Pain (NY Times, Mar 8, 2008)
Mayor Pledges Arts Programs To Survive Cuts (NY Sun, Mar 7, 2008)
Freelancers Push for Own Zone (Metro, Mar 6, 2008)
Brooklyn Museum Focuses on 1967 Tour of Bedford-Stuyvesant (Daily News, Mar 4, 2008)
Birth-place of Hip-Hop to Stay Affordable Housing (Associated Press, Mar 4, 2008)
Best of New York (according to New York Magazine) (New York Magazine, Mar 4, 2008)
Museum Exhibit Draws Fire from Police Union (Daily News, Feb 29, 2008)
Despite Raid, Designer Knockoffs Still Available (AM New York, Feb 27, 2008)
Seeing MoMA’s Sculptures With a Distinctive Tool: Fingers (NY Times, Feb 22, 2008)
Rezoning of 125th St Has Many in Harlem Concerned (NY Times, Feb 21, 2008)
More Insane Public Art: PS1's 'Urban Farm' (Curbed, Feb 19, 2008)
Preliminary Mayor's Management Report (, Feb 15, 2008)
An interim look at the performance of various city agencies was released yesterday in a report called the Preliminary Mayor's Management Report. Published annually, it takes a look at the city's performance in the first four months of the fiscal year and forecasts performance expectations. Much of the information can be broken down by individual agency, issue, or community. Some significant highlights were: Sewer back up complaints jumped by 23 percent; the average response time to heat complaints rose by 50 percent (although stays within the goal of seven hours); and major felony crimes in schools were nearly a third lower than the same quarter last year.
Graffiti Complaints Double in Brooklyn, Where Arrests Rise By a Third (Daily News, Feb 12, 2008)
Graffit Complaints in the Bronx Rise By Over 50 Percent (Daily News, Feb 12, 2008)
After Evacuation, Artists Begin an Effort to Save Their Haven (NY Times, Feb 10, 2008)
Better Homes for the Apocalypse (City Room, Feb 6, 2008)
Seniors To Get Closer To The Arts (NY 1, Feb 5, 2008)
Sides Dig In on 125th Street Rezoning (NY Sun, Jan 31, 2008)
The Police Department's Fight Against Chalk Drawings (Village Voice, Jan 30, 2008)
From Council to Sun Dance (NY Sun, Jan 30, 2008)
Fields of Fuel, the movie that won the Documentary Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, features an interview with City Councilmember James Gennaro. Gennaro is seen in the movie discussing legislation he introduced that would require heating oil sold in the city to contain biodiesel.
Harlem Community Upset With 125th St Rezoning (AM New York, Jan 25, 2008)
125th St Rezoning Plan Is Under Fire (City Room, Jan 25, 2008)
Seeking Room to Rock Where Cost of Space Just Keeps Rising (NY Times, Jan 24, 2008)
Kool Herc Fights to Save Birthplace of Hip Hop (Village Voice, Jan 22, 2008)
In Harlem, 2 Record Stores Go the Way of the Vinyl (NY Times, Jan 21, 2008)
New York's East River to Host Artist Eliasson's 'Waterfalls' (Bloomberg, Jan 16, 2008)
Waterfalls as Art To Be Installed in East River (NY Times, Jan 15, 2008)
Next Public Art Extravaganza: Artificial Waterfalls on East River (NY Sun, Jan 15, 2008)
Residents Seek to Save Bronx Birthplace of Hip-Hop (AM New York, Jan 15, 2008)
Local Damage Mounting in Writers' Strike (Crain's, Jan 9, 2008)
Reclaiming New York for Local Arts (, Jan 9, 2008)
Pricey City Drives Out Artists (AM New York, Jan 4, 2008)
Trying to Find a Formula to Tame the Spread of Chain Stores (The Villager, Jan 4, 2008)
Carroll Gardens Democracy Wall (Brooklyn 12, Jan 4, 2008)
New Transit Squad Out to Erase Subway Graffiti (Daily News, Dec 26, 2007)
'Iconic' Design Chosen for Governors Island (NY Sun, Dec 20, 2007)
Eminent Domain Puts Arts Collective in Flux (AM New York, Dec 19, 2007)
'Crack is Wack' Mural Nearly 20 (Newsday, Dec 13, 2007)
Stagehands Union Overwhelmingly Ratifies New Contract (NY 1, Dec 10, 2007)
Weeks after the strike that shut down most of Broadway, the stagehands union overwhelmingly voted to ratify its new contract Sunday.
Chelsea Still Center of Art World, but Lower East Side Beckons (Chelsea Now, Dec 7, 2007)
Stalled Brooklyn Arts District Regains Momentum (NY Times, Dec 5, 2007)
New York in Danger of Losing Its Artists (NY Sun, Dec 3, 2007)
Galleries Flourish in the Lower East Side (NY Times, Dec 1, 2007)
Broadway Strike Ends (NY Times, Nov 29, 2007)
The league representing Broadway’s theater owners and producers and the union representing its stagehands announced a settlement last night, bringing to a 19-day strike.
Merchants, Fans Eager for Theaters to Reopen (NY Times, Nov 29, 2007)
The tentative settlement of the Broadway strike won rave reviews from merchants in the Theater District whose businesses had flopped during the prolonged closings — and from frustrated fans waiting to see the shows.
Broadway Back at the Table (NY Post, Nov 27, 2007)
Broadway Talks Reopening (NY Post, Nov 26, 2007)
Broadway theater producers and striking stagehands have decided to return to the negotiating table following another week of shuttered shows, officials said yesterday.
In Broadway Dispute, Questions of Fairness (NY Times, Nov 26, 2007)
Guggenheim Hue Is Considered by Landmarking Commission (NY Sun, Nov 20, 2007)
Pier D Stands Out in the West Side’s Industrial Past (City Room, Nov 19, 2007)
Arts Business Expands at Navy Yard (NY Sun, Nov 15, 2007)
A New Museum Rises on the Bowery (New Yorker, Nov 14, 2007)
Broadway Strike Benefits Some Businesses (AM New York, Nov 14, 2007)
City Hall Looks to Stop Strike Before Holiday Season (Daily News, Nov 13, 2007)
Mayor Bloomberg's top aides frantically worked the phones Monday, trying to get producers and stagehands to settle their differences before the crippling Broadway strike kills the Thanksgiving tourist rush.
Broadway Strike Will Halt All but Eight Shows (NY Times, Nov 12, 2007)
Broadway’s stagehands are striking today after months of negotiations with theater owners and producers.
Brooklyn's Loch Ness Monster (Curbed, Nov 8, 2007)
Extended Strike Could Hurt NY TV Shows (Newsday, Nov 7, 2007)
State Panel Probes Women’s Museum (Daily News, Nov 6, 2007)
TV, Screen Writers In NYC Prepare To Hit Picket Lines (NY 1, Nov 5, 2007)
TV and screen writers here in New York City and in Hollywood could be on the picket line outside major movie studios and television networks Monday morning if union leaders and producers fail to reach a contract agreement by midnight Sunday.
Broadway Talks Back On (NY Sun, Oct 30, 2007)
Floating Aluminum Tree Art Project for Anable Basin (Curbed, Oct 26, 2007)
Bloomberg Looks to Stop Broadway Shutdown (AM New York, Oct 23, 2007)
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has offered to help get stalled labor negotiations between Broadway stagehands and theater producers back on track, but feels "at least for the next month or so, there is no danger of a work stoppage or lockout on Broadway."
Stagehands’ Union Authorizes a Strike (, Oct 22, 2007)
Members of Local One, the union representing almost all Broadway stagehands, authorized their leaders to call a strike in a unanimous vote yesterday, the union said. While the vote does not mean that a strike is inevitable, it is a necessary step if one is to be called.
Nightclubs, City Strike Deal on Police Response (AM New York, Oct 19, 2007)
New York's Position as Cultural Capital is Safe (New Yorker, Oct 17, 2007)
Broadway Stagehands Set Strike Vote for October 21 (Associated Press, Oct 15, 2007)
Leaders of the Broadway stagehands union have scheduled a strike authorization vote for Oct. 21 after tense labor negotiations this week between Broadway producers and Local One failed to produce a settlement.
Six Year Old Fined $300 for Drawing on Sidewalk with Chalk (Brooklyn Papers, Oct 12, 2007)
Strike by Stagehands Could Shut Down Broadway (NY Post, Oct 10, 2007)
Has Money Ruined Art in New York? (New York Magazine, Oct 10, 2007)
City Pushes Black Arts Center Out of Downtown Brooklyn (Village Voice, Oct 10, 2007)
Ticket Booth Eyes Spring Opening (NY Times, Oct 9, 2007)
Art Project on Roosevelt Island to Be Illuminated Tonight (NY Post, Oct 5, 2007)
Parks Department Celebrates 40 Years Of Public Art (NY 1, Oct 4, 2007)
Final Designs For Three WTC Site Towers (WNYC, Sep 7, 2007)
Housing Help Slated for Artists (AM New York, Aug 31, 2007)
Cultural Trolleys in the Outer Boroughs (, Aug 31, 2007)
Cultural Trolleys in the outer boroughs hold great promise, says a new report by the Center for an Urban Future, but they have a mixed track record of success. "While some of the trolleys have had an undeniably positive impact in raising the profile of cultural institutions and puncturing old perceptions of neighborhoods, most of New York’s trolley routes have failed to boost attendance in a meaningful way," the report finds. To be successful, it says, a trolley must run frequently enough to be of use, and be well planned and publicized. The report also says the state and city tourism agencies don't do enough to support them. Furthermore, their intense use of gas is of concern to the report's authors.
Caribbean Visions of Tropical Paradise and Protest (, Aug 31, 2007)
In its apparent continuing effort to be as un-Manhattan as possible, the Brooklyn Museum has been cooking up shows that the fashion-obsessed art establishment is guaranteed to find uncool. Hip-hop, “Star Wars,” feminism. What could be next? “Infinite Island: Contemporary Caribbean Art” is next.
CBGB Founder Dies (Newsday, Aug 30, 2007)
An Identity Crisis at the Museum of Modern Art (Village Voice, Aug 22, 2007)
Artist Arrested for Floating 200-Year-Old Submarine Replica (Newsday, Aug 7, 2007)
New Film Rules Could Require Permits (NY Sun, Aug 1, 2007)
Filmmakers and photographers who have made New York City one of the world's most beloved backdrops are upset over proposed rules that would force them to get a permit and a $1 million insurance policy to use cameras in public places.
Iwo Jima Sculpture Ousted from Museum (NY Times, Aug 1, 2007)
Artists Fight Proposed Filming Restrictions (, Jul 31, 2007)
City Settles Offensive Art Suit (NY Sun, Jun 7, 2007)
The Best - And Worst - Movie Theaters in the City (AM New York, May 11, 2007)
Kitty Carlisle Hart, Arts Advocate, Dies (NY Times, Apr 19, 2007)
Using Computer Evidence, Prosecutors Charge Noted Artist with Graffiti Offenses (NY Times, Apr 19, 2007)
Musicians Ask City to Help to Save Clubs from Development (Metro, Apr 18, 2007)
Ticket Scalping Could Soon Be Legalized In New York (NY Post, Mar 20, 2007)
How the Graffiti Crackdown Sent One Tagger to Jail (Village Voice, Mar 2, 2007)
Arts Education Program Will Be Phased Out, Says Klein (Daily News, Feb 22, 2007)
Three Centuries of City Churches Provide An Architectural Treasure (City Journal, Feb 16, 2007)
Brooklyn Movie Studio Expands to Take on Hollywood (Daily News, Feb 14, 2007)
Not All Arts Groups Embrace Department Of Cultural Affairs' Funding Changes (NY Times, Feb 1, 2007)
While some arts groups are likely to benefit from a change announced last week in New York City’s process for dispensing culture funds, those that fared well under the old system may face significant losses.
Ending The Budget Dance For The Arts (NY Sun, Jan 29, 2007)
Bloomberg and Council Change Arts Financing (NY Times, Jan 25, 2007)
Public Theater Forms Partnership With Stanford University (, Jan 21, 2007)
Film About New Yorkers To Be Projected On Fa (Metro, Jan 16, 2007)
Film Production Boom Due To Incentives, Mayor's Office Says (, Dec 29, 2006)
The Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting trumpeted more than $600 million in new production and 6,000 new jobs this past year as a result of its "Made in NY" tax credit incentive legislation, signed into law in January by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Conflict At The New York City Ballet's School of American Ballet (, Dec 25, 2006)
On Sept. 30, powerful socialite and benefactress Anne Bass ended one of the city cultural elite’s oldest pas de deux when she resigned from the board of the School of American Ballet after 25 years.
The school, founded by George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein to train Americans in Balanchine’s muscular, daring and revolutionary form of classical dance, and which later gave rise to the New York City Ballet, the resident dance company of Lincoln Center, had been directed since 1983 by the dashing and tempestuous playboy, Peter Martins.
And finally, it is Mr. Martins—and his leadership of the school and the company—that she blames for her exit.
“For me, [the New York City Ballet] feels irrelevant now,” Ms. Bass said.
Whitney Agrees to Open Museum Downtown at Entrance to High Line (NY Times, Nov 28, 2006)
Stolen Goya Recovered, But Will Not Be Included In Guggenheim Show (NY Times, Nov 21, 2006)
Goya Painting Worth More Than $ 1 Million Stolen En Route To Guggenheim (NY Sun, Nov 14, 2006)
Mayor Vows To Combat Video Piracy, Which Is Centered In NYC (NY Times, Oct 24, 2006)
CBGB Hosts Last Concert Before Eviction (Newsday, Oct 16, 2006)
The final chords reverberated off the black, sticker-covered walls of CBGB as the grungy, iconic club toasted the end of its 33-year residence in New York.
Cheap Tickets For Opera, Theater Etc. Countertrend To Rising Prices (NY Times, Oct 10, 2006)
9/11 Kin Protest Bloomberg (NY Post, Oct 5, 2006)
Addition to Art Museum Dramatizes Changes in the Bronx (Metro, Oct 4, 2006)
Guggenheim Has Plans to Restore Its Landmark Building (NY Sun, Sep 27, 2006)
Is NYC-TV Too Entertaining, Not Substantive Enough, Councilmember Gale Brewer Asks At Hearing (Metro, Sep 15, 2006)
Why the Howl Festival Collapsed (Village Voice, Sep 13, 2006)
Suit Is Filed Against the Whitney Over Plans To Expand Museum (NY Sun, Sep 1, 2006)
Upper East Side residents who want to stop the Whitney Museum of American Art's planned expansion have filed suit against the city, hoping to rewind the approval process and force the museum to scale back its plan.
Preview Of Fall 2006 Arts (New York Magazine, Aug 29, 2006)
Cultural Affairs Department Will Move To New (Fourth) Home, Across From City Hall (NY Times, Aug 22, 2006)
Big Art Heists Have New York on Alert (NY Sun, Aug 15, 2006)
Manhattan Premiere Of Oliver Stone (AM New York, Aug 4, 2006)
Museum of the City of New York to get $70 Million Renovation (NY 1, Aug 3, 2006)
Near Atlantic Yards, Arts District Transforms Downtown Brookyln (Village Voice, Aug 2, 2006)
Dozens Of 9/11 Memorials Have Gone Up In And Around The NY Metropolitan Area (City Journal, Jul 25, 2006)
Council Gives Seed Money to Hip Hop Museum (NY Sun, Jul 7, 2006)
The City Council has quietly allocated $1.5 million in capital funding over the next two years that will serve as seed money for a hip-hop museum in the northeast section of the Bronx.
Graffiti's Golden Age (New York Magazine, Jun 29, 2006)
Lincoln Center's Plans For 65th Street Unveiled (Metro, Jun 13, 2006)
Court Blocks Spray Paint Ban (Daily News, Jun 9, 2006)
The writing could be on the wall after a court yesterday blocked the city from enforcing a law that bars young adults from having spray paint. The three-judge Second Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a district judge's decision to table the spray-paint ban while the lower judge assesses its constitutionality.
Juilliard Commencement, Ending Centennial Year (NY Sun, Jun 1, 2006)
Construction To Begin On New 217-Apartment Tower In Brooklyn For Homeless And Artists (Metro, May 23, 2006)
The 9/11 Memorial Fiasco (New York Magazine, May 15, 2006)
Architect Michael Arad’s memorial teeters on the brink of collapse. The latest cost estimate issued this month—an impossible $972 million—has Bloomberg demanding that the design be scaled back, while others suggest that it be scrapped altogether. The battle that is now breaking into full view has been raging behind the scenes since the moment Arad’s plan was picked. He has waged a personal war against the LMDC—to defend his design, he says, from the agency’s cronyism and shoddy management. In violation of his contract, he has taken his case directly to board members and former jurists and now for the first time tells the full story of what has happened to the memorial, as he sees it (others see it quite differently). “I have no choice but to fight them every step of the way,” says Arad. “I can’t tell you how many other stupid ideas have been proposed over the last two years.”
Fundraising For World Trade Center Memorial Halted Until Design And Costs Clarified (Daily News, May 9, 2006)
New Times Square Ticket Booth Will Feature Red Glass Bleachers (NY Times, May 2, 2006)
Emerging Artists: No Room To Grow (Art Info, Apr 18, 2006)
Pulitzers Award No Drama Prize (NY Sun, Apr 18, 2006)
Metropolitan Museum Head Philippe de Montebello Defends Pursuit Of Antiquities (NY Sun, Apr 18, 2006)
Plan To Charge Fee For 9/11 Museum Sparks Protest (NY Times, Apr 11, 2006)
The public will have to "pay to grieve" if an admission fee is imposed at the World Trade Center museum, a group of 9/11 victims' relatives is charging.
Renzo Piano's Expansion of the Morgan Library Transforms a World of Robber Barons and Scholars (, Apr 11, 2006)
New York Theater Workshop And The "Maelstrom" Over Its Cancellation Of "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" (Washington Post, Apr 9, 2006)
City to Establish Office to Promote and Support Arts Groups (NY Times, Apr 5, 2006)
MOMA At Middle Age (New York Magazine, Apr 3, 2006)
Something disorienting—and fascinating—is occurring at the Museum of Modern Art. It’s becoming just a museum. A great museum, to be sure, but just a museum.
At its reopening in November 2004, MoMA emerged with a lavish new building, reorganized collections, and enthusiastic reviews... Yet the art world today is unhappy with MoMA....the uneasiness has jelled around a single word... corporate.
Film and TV Business Booming In NYC, Mayor Considers Limiting Tax Incentives (NY Times, Mar 14, 2006)
Construction Begins Of World Trade Center Memorial (Daily News, Mar 14, 2006)
construction of the World Trade Center Memorial was finally officially underway — and the battle with many 9/11 family members was joined
Federal Grants Are Set to Aid Cultural Activity Downtown (NY Times, Mar 8, 2006)
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Flea Theater and the National Museum of the American Indian are among 63 arts and civic organizations that are to benefit from more than $27 million in grants being announced today by state and city officials.
The federal grants, ranging from $20,000 to $2 million, will be funneled through the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation with the goal of reviving cultural activity downtown. The biggest chunk goes to the New Museum, which is building a new $60 million home on the Bowery.
Lobby Of 7 World Trade Center Will Feature Text-In-Light By Artist Jenny Holzer (NY Times, Mar 6, 2006)
The artwork — a continuing stream of poetry and prose written by dozens of different authors, from Elizabeth Bishop and Allen Ginsberg to Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman — will move along a screen made of acid-etched, diffused, translucent glass illuminated by whitish light.
It will take at least eight hours for the entire text to scroll by, Ms. Holzer said. The piece will dominate the lobby of the 52-story building
Major Preservation Group Demands Delay in Construction of 9/11 Memorial (Daily News, Mar 1, 2006)
Protesters Step Up Calls For 9/11 Memorial Above Ground (, Feb 28, 2006)
Survey Shows Tough Life for City (Metro, Feb 24, 2006)
Met's Antiquities Case Shows Donor, Trustee Ties to Looted Art (Bloomberg, Feb 24, 2006)
Met Museum Signing Agreement To Return Antiquities To Italy (Daily News, Feb 21, 2006)
Robert Rauschenberg Talks About Exhibition Of His Work At Met (Metro, Feb 6, 2006)
Mayor's Budget Cuts Millions from City Programs (Daily News, Feb 2, 2006)
Playwright Wendy Wasserstein, Chronicler Of A Generation Of Women, Dies At 55 (, Jan 31, 2006)
Boys Choir Of Harlem Goes To Court To Try To Prevent Its Eviction By Dept. Of Ed. (Daily News, Jan 31, 2006)
Appreciating Playwright Wendy Wasserstein (Washington Post, Jan 31, 2006)
Harlem Boys Choir Seeks to Avoid Eviction (NY 1, Jan 25, 2006)
Pataki to Propose $75 Million for NYC Cultural Institutions (Newsday, Jan 16, 2006)
Dinkins to Head Effort to Save Harlem Boys Choir (Daily News, Jan 9, 2006)
Drawing Center Eyes Move to South Street (NY 1, Jan 6, 2006)
Visionary David Burney, New Head of the City's Department of Design and Construction Overseeing 700 Projects (Metropolis Magazine, Jan 4, 2006)
[A]s head of the city's Depart-ment of Design and Construction (DDC)--the first architect to hold that title--David Burney, 58, is preparing to leave an even bigger mark. The DDC oversees capital projects for 22 client agencies, including the fire, police, and cultural affairs departments. It also performs infrastructure work, including the just completed renovation of Columbus Circle. Recruited by Michael Bloomberg--whom he says is the "first mayor since John Lindsay to really care about urban design"--Burney is hoping to use the agency to match in the public sector the design boom that is taking place in the private realm.
[There are]some 700 projects on the DDC's agenda. Some of them predate Burney's Design and Construction Excellence program. A few of those--including Rafael Viñoly's expansion of the Brooklyn Children's Museum and a new visitor center at the Queens Botanical Garden, by BKSK Architects of Manhattan--show promise.
But those are the exceptions.
Bloomberg To Sign Three Tough Anti-Graffiti Bills Thursday (, Dec 28, 2005)
The mayor plans to sign into law on Thursday a group of bills that toughen the city's penalties for graffiti vandalism and make it illegal for anyone under 21 to carry spray paint or etching tools on public property.
The legislation, separated into three bills, also makes owners of large commercial and residential properties responsible for cleaning graffiti off their buildings.
Transit Strike Hit Off-Broadway Hard (, Dec 23, 2005)
Critics Re-Evaluating Museum of Modern Art Renovation, Which They All Hated A Year Ago (, Dec 12, 2005)
Carnegie Hall and City Center Announce New Partnership (, Dec 12, 2005)
Carnegie Hall and City Center, separated by a strip of West 56th Street, announced a partnership yesterday that will lead to a $150 million fund-raising effort to renovate City Center, and give Carnegie Hall's increasingly ambitious programmers access to a dance and theater space.
Neighborhood Coalition Fights Proliferation Of Noisy Nightclubs And Bars In Lower East Side (Time Out New York, Dec 5, 2005)
Theaters Agree To Help Blind, Deaf Get Access To Movies (Associated Press, Dec 4, 2005)
Did you catch the new movie that everyone's talking about at school and at work?
If you're visually or hearing impaired, you probably couldn't.
That would change under a deal with eight national theater chains to make it easier for visually and hearing impaired people to enjoy movies in 140 theaters statewide, according to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
Hip Hop Producer Gets Acquittal (, Dec 3, 2005)
A federal jury acquitted the hip-hop impresario Irv Gotti and his brother of money-laundering charges late yesterday, prompting jubilant cheers and pandemonium in the packed courtroom in Brooklyn. The verdict ended a three-year ordeal for the two men and dealt a stunning blow to federal prosecutors
Kaufman Astoria Movie Studio May Merge With Culver Studios, Where (, Dec 3, 2005)
Culver Studios of California, where "Gone With the Wind" and "Citizen Kane" were filmed, is in discussions with Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens over a deal that would join the two historic production houses.
The Met May Settle With Italy Over Antiquities (, Nov 29, 2005)
For all the saber-rattling before their grueling six-hour meeting on Tuesday, Italy's culture ministry and the Metropolitan Museum of Art have mapped out a potential solution to Italy's claims on antiquities in the museum's collection, officials said Wednesday. In essence, Italy would officially own the works, which it asserts were looted within its borders, but the Met would get to keep them - or receive objects of equal value as long-term loans.
The Schubert Organization -- A Question Of Succession (, Nov 29, 2005)
Gerald Schoenfeld, by most accounts the most powerful person in American theater, is the chairman of the Shubert Organization, the largest Broadway theater chain. He is 81, and is mum on a successor.
Embattled With Landlord, Broadway Dance Center May Lose Its Home (, Nov 29, 2005)
"Take Back The Memorial," The Handful Of 9/11 Families Who Vetoed The International Freedom Center (New York Magazine, Nov 22, 2005)
Non-profit Theaters Face Threats (Such As Insufficient Funding), Alliance Of Resident Theaters Tells City Council (, Nov 22, 2005)
At the second performing-arts hearing of the Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries and International Intergroup Relations, held in late October, council members heard the stirring testimony of Virginia Louloudes, executive director of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (ART/NY). Louloudes' organization represents 400 nonprofit theatres in the city, and her report made clear the real challenges and threats facing nonprofit theatre and the needs of those who create within the nonprofit environment.
"The overarching challenge facing New York City's not-for-profit theatres is the fact that available funding from government and institutional sectors has failed to keep pace with the incredible explosion of not-for-profit companies," Louloudes stated.
The People Who Are Suing To Get Rid Of City (New York Magazine, Nov 15, 2005)
Bloomberg Steps In To Mediate Radio City Music Hall vs. Musicians (, Nov 15, 2005)
At The New York Public Library, It's Sell First, Raise Money Later (, Nov 12, 2005)
Last May, the library was sharply criticized for selling Asher B. Durand's "Kindred Spirits" (1849)....Among the other works up for sale this month at Sotheby's are Gilbert Stuart's "Munro-Lenox Portrait" of George Washington, estimated to bring $6 million to $8 million; John Singleton Copley's "Mrs. Theodore Atkinson, Jr." ($3.5 million to $4.5 million); and his "Hannah White Cowell Hooper" ($1 million to $1.5 million). The priciest work, at $10 million to $15 million, is another Stuart, his "Constable-Hamilton Portrait" of Washington. In all, the sale is expected to bring some $22 million to $31 million....
the departing art had deep roots in the library's and New York City's history and identity
Arts Center at Ground Zero May Feel Pinch (NY Times, Nov 11, 2005)
With construction estimates rising for the World Trade Center memorial, several directors of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation expressed concern yesterday that the performing arts center at the site might get squeezed by a tightening budget.
Radio City Reacts to Strike With Lockout (NY Sun, Nov 4, 2005)
152 schools Still Have No Full-Time Art classes (, Nov 1, 2005)
Offstage Drama Surrounds 42nd Street Theater Site (, Oct 31, 2005)
The developer Stephen M. Ross's plan to bring Cirque du Soleil to West 42nd Street has sparked a bitter drama worthy of the Broadway stage, a collision of art and commerce in a city where real estate development is constantly making and remaking neighborhoods.
Mr. Ross is not considering a late-life career change to Broadway producer. But he does want to insert the impossibly contorting human circus into a permanent home in a 60-story apartment building he plans to build between Dyer and 10th Avenues.
The project has touched off an imbroglio that pits the developer against theater enthusiasts, the local community board and some city officials and seeks to plumb the definition of "legitimate theater" - a murky rubric that has come to embrace drama, musicals and even puppets.
Ed Koch Exhibit: "Mayor Who Brought the City Back from the Brink" (NY Sun, Oct 24, 2005)
Smithsonian Institute Looks To Get Involved At Ground Zero (Daily News, Oct 20, 2005)
NYC Getting Arts Management Program, Courtesy Of Kennedy Center In D.C. (, Oct 20, 2005)
The Kennedy Center announced yesterday it is expanding its arts management initiative to include a concentrated program in New York.
Called "Arts Advantage/NYC," it is a cooperative effort among the center, Time Warner and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.Michael M. Kaiser, the Kennedy Center's president, said the venture would use the techniques employed in consultations for minority arts organizations and mid-size American orchestras, but would focus on unique issues in the New York arts world.
"These organizations have a hard time typically building an individual donor base. They are usually too reliant on foundation and government money"...
The initiative is directed at cultural groups, including theaters and museums, that have budgets of $250,000 to $2.5 million. The instruction includes online chats, symposiums and one-on-one consultation.
Virginia Theater Renamed August Wilson Theater After Playwright (, Oct 18, 2005)
"Safe" Exhibition At the Museum Of Modern Art In Effect Asks: Have New Yorkers Stopped Taking Enough Risks? (New York Magazine, Oct 11, 2005)
SAFE: Design Takes On Risk,” which opens this Sunday at the Museum of Modern Art, could also be called “FEAR: Design for Scaredy-Cats.” An unusually provocative show, it does more than isolate an important theme in contemporary design. It invokes an especially dispiriting state of mind. Something’s happened to the natural desire for safety. It now saturates our consciousness. It’s become a form of cultural hysteria, one that inhibits, restrains, crimps, smothers, and paralyzes everything from politics to art. Even in once-brave New York.
Playwright August Wilson Dies At 60 (, Oct 3, 2005)
For Ground Zero Building, It's Back to Drawing Board (NY Times, Oct 3, 2005)
Because Gov. George E. Pataki evicted the Freedom Center last week as too controversial, and the Drawing Center is looking for space elsewhere, state officials say that the "Snohetta building" will instead be used in conjunction with the underground memorial nearby, to tell the story of 9/11.
The building was custom designed for its original tenants, however, and it is unclear how much the new version will resemble the renderings that have been in the public eye since May.
Is Culture Gone At Ground Zero? (, Sep 30, 2005)
It's not easy to pinpoint the day culture died at ground zero.
Since four cultural organizations were selected for the site a year ago, the notion of giving the arts an integral role has been gradually - and more lately precipitously - slipping away.
Daniel Libeskind's master plan for the former World Trade Center site called for life-affirming, forward-looking cultural activities that would coexist with a memorial's somber acknowledgment of lives lost. Culture was supposed to make the site a hub of round-the-clock activity for tourists and to provide a vibrant gathering place for people who live downtown.
But at this point, culture is being cast as a suspicious interloper.
Governor Bars Freedom Center At Ground Zero (, Sep 29, 2005)
After a summer of furious and steadily rising criticism, Gov. George E. Pataki evicted the proposed International Freedom Center museum yesterday from its place next to the World Trade Center memorial site. With that, the museum declared itself to be out of business.
"The I.F.C. cannot be located on the memorial quadrant," Mr. Pataki said in a statement. That quadrant, at the southwest corner of the trade center site, contains the footprints of the twin towers.
The Freedom Center, picked for the memorial site by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, was envisioned as a living memorial in which the story of Sept. 11, 2001, would be told in the context of the worldwide struggle for freedom through the ages.
Critics said the sacred precinct of the memorial was no place for a lesson in geopolitics or social history, particularly when a separate memorial museum devoted solely to 9/11 was being planned entirely underground, within the trade center foundations...
the center said in its own statement that there was no other location to explore, since the memorial quadrant was "the site for which the I.F.C. was created, at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's request, and as an integral part of Daniel Libeskind's master site plan."
"We do not believe there is a viable alternative place for the I.F.C. at the World Trade Center site," said the statement from the center's executives, Tom A. Bernstein, Peter W. Kunhardt and Richard J. Tofel. "We consider our work, therefore, to have been brought to an end."
Bloomberg Wavers in Support for Freedom Center (Daily News, Sep 28, 2005)
Guggenheim Appoints Long-Time #2, Lisa Dennison, As Director (, Sep 21, 2005)
Smithson Retrospective Includes A Man-Made Island Floating Down The Hudson (, Sep 16, 2005)
The island of Robert Smithson was formed over about a week, in a ragged-looking barge yard on Staten Island, shaped by a public art group, a landscape architect, a contractor, an engineer, a project manager and various other dedicated conceptual art workers using a 30-by-90-foot flat-decked barge, 10 trees, 3 huge rocks, a bunch of shrubs, rolls of sod, a whole lot of dirt and even more ingenuity.
The result, which will begin daily travels tomorrow along Manhattan's shores...is part of a Smithson retrospective at the Whitney Museum of Art.
City Opera Head Quits (, Sep 15, 2005)
Paul Kellogg said yesterday that he would retire as general and artistic director of the New York City Opera at the end of next season, in 2007, citing his age and the burdens of trying to attract new funds and new audiences.
Mediator Brought in to Ease Conflict Over Ground Zero Museum (NY Sun, Sep 9, 2005)
Art Student League's 130th Anniversary Saluted In More Than A Dozen Exhibitions (, Sep 9, 2005)
The League is putting on the show to celebrate the 130th anniversary of its founding. And it won't be partying alone. As an anniversary salute, more than a dozen Manhattan art galleries have organized smaller shows, some already on view, devoted to artists associated with the institution.
MoMA Acquires A "Lost" Matisse (, Sep 8, 2005)
A rich and hypnotic interior by Matisse whose whereabouts had been unknown to scholars in recent decades has been purchased for the Museum of Modern Art by its new president, Marie-Josée Kravis, and her husband, the financier Henry Kravis. ..experts in the field suggested that a work of that rarity and generous size would probably sell for around $25 million.
Fall Arts Preview Issue (New York Magazine, Sep 6, 2005)
Navigating high season in the world’s culture capital.
World Trade Center Memorial Museum, A Look At A Museum-In-Progress (, Aug 29, 2005)
Close to the heart but far from public consciousness, the World Trade Center Memorial Museum - where visitors will be immersed in history in the very crucible where it unfolded - is beginning to take form.
There is no director, though a national search is under way. No artifacts have been chosen, though a three-volume catalog suggests how many there are to choose. Boundary skirmishes among the users of underground space on the trade center site are settled enough that officials can say the museum will have at least 110,000 square feet of floor area.
A picture of this museum-in-progress emerged from interviews with key figures at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation and the architectural firm of Davis Brody Bond. The plans will be presented publicly at workshops beginning in mid-September.
Pataki Warns Cultural Groups for Museum at Ground Zero (, Aug 26, 2005)
Gov. George E. Pataki delivered an ultimatum to two important cultural players at ground zero yesterday, demanding "an absolute guarantee" that they would not mount exhibitions that could offend 9/11 families and pilgrims to a proposed memorial nearby.
Treading warily into the nexus of art and politics, the First Amendment and the symbolism of the twin towers site, Mr. Pataki made the demand after learning that one of the groups, the Drawing Center, has featured some politically themed and controversial artwork in its shows. A current display at its SoHo gallery, for instance, appears to make light of President Bush's description of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the Axis of Evil.
While saying that he respected artistic expression, Mr. Pataki invoked the solemnity of past battlegrounds in promising to preserve the hallowed ground in Lower Manhattan and ensure that no one will come away feeling offended by the reborn site.
"I view that memorial site as sacred grounds, akin to the beaches of Normandy or Pearl Harbor, and we will not tolerate anything on that site that denigrates America, denigrates New York or freedom, or denigrates the sacrifice or courage that the heroes showed on Sept. 11," Mr. Pataki told reporters in Albany.
Referring to the two cultural groups, he continued, "They have to do that, or they will not be at the memorial site - to the extent that I have the ability to do that."
After Victory in Court, Graffiti Block Party Goes On (Newsday, Aug 25, 2005)
Wednesday hip-hop clothing designer Marc Ecko took over West 22nd Street in Manhattan to host a block party for graffiti artists to do what they often did in those days: spray paint subway cars, albeit fake ones this time.
The Freedom Tower's Not So Unique Corners (, Aug 25, 2005)
Governor George Pataki has described the beveled corners in the current Freedom Tiwer design as "unique." But a number of buildings and building projects have been designed with chamfered, tapering corners that create a multifaceted obelisk form out of isosceles triangles.
International Freedom Center at Ground Zero -- Pro and Con (, Aug 24, 2005)
Two articles from the Wall Street Journal attack and defend the proposed International Freedom Center at Ground Zero.
Debra Burlingame: "The World Trade Center Memorial Cultural Complex will be an imposing edifice wedged in the place where the Twin Towers once stood. It will serve as the primary "gateway" to the underground area where the names of the lost are chiseled into concrete. The organizers of its principal tenant, the International Freedom Center (IFC), have stated that they intend to take us on "a journey through the history of freedom" -- but do not be fooled into thinking that their idea of freedom is the same as that of those Marines. To the IFC's organizers, it is not only history's triumphs that illuminate, but also its failures. The public will have come to see 9/11 but will be given a high-tech, multimedia tutorial about man's inhumanity to man, from Native American genocide to the lynchings and cross-burnings of the Jim Crow South, from the Third Reich's Final Solution to the Soviet gulags and beyond. This is a history all should know and learn, but dispensing it over the ashes of Ground Zero is like creating a Museum of Tolerance over the sunken graves of the USS Arizona."
Richard Tofel: "As envisioned in Daniel Libeskind's master plan for the site's redevelopment, the International Freedom Center's building will serve as a buffer between the sacred Memorial and the hustle and bustle of the surrounding city, including the thousands of people who will move each day in and out of Santiago Calatrava's spectacular new transit hub. But the International Freedom Center itself will do much more than that. It will serve as a complement to the Memorial, bringing a universal "narrative of hope" to a place where hope is imperative...To be sure, the International Freedom Center will host debates and note points of view with which you -- and I -- will disagree. But that is the point, the proof of our society's enduring self-confidence and humanity. Moreover, the International Freedom Center will rise above the politics of the moment. It will not exist to precisely define "freedom" or to tell people what to think, but to get them to think -- and to act in the service of freedom as they see it. And it will always do so in a manner respectful of the victims of September 11."
Citing First Amendment, Judge Says City Must Allow Graffiti Party (, Aug 23, 2005)
In a tartly worded ruling, a federal judge ordered the Bloomberg administration yesterday to reinstate a permit for a block party in Chelsea featuring the painting of graffiti on mock subway cars.
The judge, Jed S. Rakoff of Federal District Court in Manhattan, called the city's abrupt cancellation of the permit unconstitutional. He even poked fun at Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's argument that the party would incite the defacement of real subway cars.
"By the same token, presumably, a street performance of 'Hamlet' would be tantamount to encouraging revenge murder," the judge wrote.
Freedom Center Faces More Criticism (Daily News, Aug 22, 2005)
Musical Revivals Are Bombing On Broadway (, Aug 21, 2005)
So far from being a safe haven in a famously tough business, musical revivals are now in the pits, beset by a series of high-profile losers and a shrinking number of bankable titles.
Not that producers have abandoned the old favorites. Indeed, the list of recent money-losers reads like a syllabus for a college musical theater survey: "Gypsy" (2003), "Little Shop of Horrors" (2003), "Man of La Mancha" (2002), "Oklahoma!" (2002), "Into the Woods" (2002), "Bells Are Ringing" (2001), "42nd Street" (2001). You have to go back to the Clinton era - Bill's, not Hillary's - to find a commercial revival that opened and made its money back on Broadway.
And the streak looks to continue: two recent revivals - "Sweet Charity," which opened in May, and "Fiddler on the Roof," which opened in early 2004 and is to close in January - face uphill battles to recoup their original costs. This year, "La Cage Aux Folles" won the Tony Award for best revival, only to close three weeks later, still in the red.
Looking At The Public Art created by the Percent for Art program (, Aug 19, 2005)
NY Times art critic Michael Kimmelman takes a tour of some of the more than 200 public works of art in New York City created as a result of Percent for Art, "the largest public art program in the city since the Great Depression."
After Bloomberg Expresses Disapproval, City Officials Revoke Permit For Graffiti "Block Party" In Chelsea (Daily News, Aug 16, 2005)
City officials revoked a permit yesterday for a Chelsea block party that was to feature graffiti artists spray-painting replicas of subway cars.
But discussions are continuing over a new application for the Aug. 24 event planned by Marc Ecko, a former graffiti artist turned fashion designer and entrepreneur.
According to Ecko's Web site, the day-long Getting Up Block Party would have closed down W. 22nd St., from 10th to 11th Aves., while "20 legendary graffiti artists" painted the sides of subway cars.
The permit revocation was announced by the Mayor's Community Assistance Unit shortly after Mayor Bloomberg commented that "defacing subway cars is hardly a joke."
Brooklyn Historical Society Renovated But In A Financial Pinch (, Aug 16, 2005)
Even the door hinges at the Brooklyn Historical Society's headquarters are stunning enough to catch a visitor's eye. The solid brass fixtures are adorned with an intricate vinelike design that might seem better suited for jewelry than for hardware.
There is no question that the blazing terra cotta and brick building, built in 1881, has been restored to its original grandeur.
And yet, on a summer afternoon in the middle of the week, there are no visitors to admire this craftsmanship. The only people in the Brooklyn Heights building are about a dozen employees and a handful of volunteers. The exhibits are open only three days a week, and the library will remain closed to the public until the end of the year.
In 1999, the historical society began a renovation that was expected to cost $14 million and take about 18 months to complete. In the end, it cost $23 million and took more than four years.
Now there are budget cuts and layoffs, and the historical society has reduced the number of hours it is open to the public. With an endowment of $1 million, a third of what it had in cash reserves in 1998, there is only a thin cushion of extra money.
Ground Zero Cultural Brouhaha -- Pataki's Sacrificing Free Speech "And TheRole of Culture In This Most Cultural Of Cities" (, Aug 16, 2005)
from NY Times editorial:
"For the past few weeks, Gov. George Pataki has been putting pressure on the founders of the International Freedom Center, hoping to force them to decide - as if on their own - to abandon their plans to be part of the ground zero development. This is a fight over far more than the future of one proposed institution. It is a battle to determine whether the area where the World Trade Center towers once stood will become a vibrant tribute to the American spirit or a place of grief only, a public cemetery with no possibility of renewal or regeneration and no vital connection to the city around it.
...It would have been possible, even a few weeks ago, for Mr. Pataki to have acknowledged the dissent of some 9/11 families, and yet to have stood up for Daniel Libeskind's master plan and with it the rebirth of Lower Manhattan, the quintessentially American principle of free speech and the role of culture, in this most cultural of cities, in helping us understand 9/11. But when it comes to the International Freedom Center at ground zero, Mr. Pataki has sacrificed any illusion of leadership.
Freedom Center, Drawing Center May Leave Ground Zero Over Restrictions on Content (, Aug 12, 2005)
The International Freedom Center was all but shown the door yesterday by state officials, who demanded that the fledgling institution undergo a new round of vetting - by relatives of 9/11 victims, among others - before it can claim the spot it was assigned last year in the World Trade Center's cultural building.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff immediately objected to the manner in which the review procedure was adopted, contrasting it with the master planning to date.
Frances Beatty Adler, the chairwoman of the Drawing Center, a museum in SoHo, acknowledged that it was looking at alternative locations in Lower Manhattan
City Paying $1.8 Million to Save a Carousel in Coney Island (Daily News, Aug 10, 2005)
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced yesterday that the city had arranged to buy the last wooden carousel in Coney Island for $1.8 million, averting an auction that could have sent the horses far from their native Brooklyn.
Celebrity Supporters Mount Final Push To Save Famed Rock Club CBGBs (Associated Press, Aug 2, 2005)
Met Opera's Online Database Gives Comprehensive Info On Productions (, Jul 31, 2005)
since it was unveiled this spring, the database has been available, free, to anyone who logs onto the Met's Web site. (Go to metopera.org, select Met History from the toolbar and click on Launch Database.)
By any measure, the Met's database is exceptionally comprehensive. But what's more, it is sheer fun to explore
Even the City's Cultural Organizations Are Hiring Lobbyists Now (NY Times, Jul 25, 2005)
Though top elected officials serve on many of their boards, the city's cultural institutions have spent millions lobbying City Hall.
No Politics in Museum Security Funds (Daily News, Jul 21, 2005)
City Council members denied yesterday that politics were behind the award of $2M in city funds to three cultural institutions to beef up security.
The Drawing Center May Pull Out Of Ground Zero Cultural Centers (, Jul 18, 2005)
Amid a storm of controversy over plans for the Ground Zero cultural centers, the Drawing Center says it has put the entire planning process for its move downtown on hold and is considering whether it should pull out of the site.
Museum officials have not spoken publicly about their role in the controversy. But Executive Director Catherine de Zegher voiced her frustration with demands that the museum agree to limit the type of art it would show in its new home. The institution wants the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. to guarantee that it will have complete freedom in curating its exhibitions.
"The LMDC knows that we would never be able to accept censorship," says Ms. de Zegher. "Now they have to come to us with their decision."
The Drawing Center, one of the four cultural institutions chosen to move to Ground Zero a year ago, came under attack last month for exhibiting work that satirizes President George W. Bush's comments about the Axis of Evil. Around the same time, the International Freedom Center, a new museum chosen to share a building with the Drawing Center, came under fire because some potential programs were deemed unpatriotic by families who lost loved ones on Sept. 11.
Museums Sell Out (Not In A Good Way) (, Jul 17, 2005)
Times art critic Michael Kimmelman writes: "Money rules. It always has, of course. But at cultural institutions today, it seems increasingly to corrupt ethics and undermine bedrock goals like preserving collections and upholding the public interest. Curators are no longer making decisions. Rich collectors, shortsighted directors and outside commercial interests are. When the New York Public Library traded away one of the city's great civic treasures, Asher B. Durand's "Kindred Spirits," in a closed auction, for $35 million, the library's curators didn't find out about the sale until hours before the public read about it in the newspaper."
...Despite the firestorm over "Kindred Spirits," the Public Library is preparing to auction off more of its American art collection this fall, including paintings by Gilbert Stuart. And the Museum of Modern Art has sold, among other things, a Picasso, a de Chirico, a de Kooning and a Pollock, artists to whom it has historic commitments. Last month it raised eyebrows by dispensing with a $5.4 million landscape by the 19th-century French painter Henri-Edmond Cross, a colleague of Seurat and Signac.
Red Tape Keeps Top Foreign Performers Off NY Stages (NY Sun, Jul 11, 2005)
City Groups Get Bloomberg Gift Of $20 Million "Anonymously" (, Jul 6, 2005)
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has expanded the breadth of his personal philanthropy during each of his four years as mayor, has showered another $20 million on 400 New York City arts and social services groups through a gift to the Carnegie Corporation of New York....
A complete list is available.
While the grants through Carnegie represent just a portion of the mayor's overall philanthropy - last year he gave a total of about $140 million in donations to more than 800 institutions and groups - they are often vital to local groups that are struggling with fund-raising and, sometimes, have also struggled with budget cuts imposed by the Bloomberg administration. And the donations cannot but help earn Mr. Bloomberg good will with the community leaders and board members connected to such organizations
Challenging The Cabaret Law's Ban On Most Dancing (, Jul 5, 2005)
The city law banning dancing in most places is called “a millstone around the neck of the arts of dance and music in New York City for decades” and is being challenged in court.
Vallone vs. Graffiti Artists (Daily News, Jul 3, 2005)
Graffiti fans threatened to tag buildings with Councilman Peter Vallone Jr.'s name after the politician called a notorious graffiti artist a "punk."
Vallone's criticism was prompted by a Time magazine publicity stunt that paid graffitist Fernando Carlo - aka Cope2 - $20,000 to tag up a SoHo advertising billboard.
"Time magazine should have spent its money rewarding legitimate artists, not some punk who's been defacing our city," Vallone (D-Queens) said Wednesday.
Since then, several Carlo allies have called Vallone's office, demanding an apology and threatening to spray-paint Vallone's name around the city as retaliation.
Hal Prince Teams With Columbia University To Nurture "Creative Producers" (, Jun 26, 2005)
Harold Prince -- producer of "West Side Story," "Fiddler on the Roof," and "Cabaret" -- has teamed with Columbia University to establish a fellowship program devoted to developing "creative producers." The program, named in honor of the Broadway producer T. Edward Hambleton, who was a founder of the Phoenix Theater, will give student producers the chance to develop shows from scratch, culminating in a presentation before potential investors.
New Design for Freedom Tower Safest Building Ever, Says Mayor (Newsday, Jun 25, 2005)
A new design for the Freedom Tower at Ground Zero will be unveiled next week and it will be "arguably the safest building ever built," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday.
Defense of The Drawing Center (, Jun 25, 2005)
Holland Cotter defends the Drawing Center from charges in the Daily News that its art is political. "In fact, the Drawing Center is noted for its rigorous formal, as opposed to ideological, mission. Since its founding in 1977, it has focused on two things: presenting museum-style shows of traditional drawing, whether in the hands of Rembrandt or Agnes Martin or 19th-century Shakers; and expanding, largely through contemporary art, the definition on what "drawing" as a medium is."
Professional Artists Painting Signs at Coney Island (, Jun 17, 2005)
in the summer of 2003, when the artist Steve Powers became simultaneously obsessed with Coney Island and the dying art of sign painting, he had a tough time convincing many of the wary and con-wise business owners that he wanted to give them - free, really - brand-new hand-painted signs for their aging bumper-car palaces and clam bars....
But Mr. Powers, a former graffiti artist who has had scrapes with the law and lots of experience dealing with suspicious authority, was persistent. And now his personal mission has become a sprawling public art project that blurs the line between art and commerce in a way that perhaps could happen only on Coney Island. Since last summer, when the project began in earnest, Mr. Powers and Creative Time, the nonprofit arts group, have signed up dozens of artists with gallery credentials and international followings to paint signs for businesses and arcades.
IFC Theater Opens In Waverly Theater (, Jun 14, 2005)
the IFC Center will open its doors to New York City on Friday, June 17th,
2005, finalizing the multi-million dollar renovation of New York City's
historic landmark, The Waverly Theater, and transforming it into a focal point
for the independent film community.
The state-of-the-art facility will include three theaters dedicated to
independent films, digital editing suites and a large cafe and meeting area.
Tony Award Winners (, Jun 14, 2005)
Complete list of Tony Award winners
Best Musical: Spamalot
Best Play: Doubt
Best Revival of a Musical: La Cage Aux Folles
Best Revival of a Play: Glengarry Glen Ross
etc.
Workshop Held On Improving Design Of Yellow Cabs (, Jun 6, 2005)
The New York City taxi could be getting a bumper-to-bumper make-over.
Car designers, city bureaucrats, drivers and passengers are being invited to a workshop this month to discuss how to improve the comforts and composition of the iconic yellow cab.
Two Million Artifacts From NYC History Go Upstate For Safekeeping (, Jun 2, 2005)
A huge collection of scuffed and chipped archaeological artifacts going back to the city's horse-and-buggy days are headed to Albany for safe keeping: The New York State Museum has agreed to house roughly 2 million items the South Street Seaport Museum couldn't afford to keep
Effort To Create A Museum Of Counterculture in the East Village (, May 23, 2005)
Tonight at a fund-raiser for the Federation of East Village Artists, the organization that produces Howl!,Phil Hartman, a filmmaker and owner (with his wife, Doris) of the Two Boots pizza chain intends to announce plans for the Museum of the Counterculture, his latest project to celebrate the neighborhood's grungy past even as it is being overtaken by the city's real estate market juggernaut
A City Opera Conductor With Connections (, May 21, 2005)
It is a Cinderella story - and perhaps one more tale of how money talks.
On Sunday afternoon, eight years after joining the New York City Opera as an unpaid intern, Atsushi Yamada, a one-time Sony salaryman without conservatory training or a single English-language review to his name, will conduct the company in Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" in Tokyo.
Mr. Yamada's rise to the podium is a testament to the spirit of artistic entrepreneurship: he helped raise millions of dollars for City Opera's foray to his native land, its first overseas tour in almost 20 years. But it also leads to questions about the role big money plays in the arts, particularly in the cash-desperate world of classical music, and how it influences artistic choices.
Disgraceful Sale Of "Kindred Spirits" (, May 19, 2005)
In a backroom transaction that has caused an uproar in the ordinarily amoral art world, the New York Public Library has sold Asher B. Durand's masterpiece, Kindred Spirits (1849), a vaunted painting of artist Thomas Cole and poet and journalist William Cullen Bryant on a ledge in the Catskill Mountains, to Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, who says she plans to install it in the absurdly named Crystal Bridges, an as-yet-unbuilt Walton Family Foundation museum in Bentonville, Ark. The price was a king's ransom -- $35 million, paid in a hush-hush "sealed bid" auction that "minimized the likelihood of a public brouhaha," according to New York Times chief art critic Michael Kimmelmann, who wrote back-to-back articles criticizing the deal. The sale was conducted by Sotheby's, which may well have made at least 10 percent, or $3.5 million, on the transaction, according to insiders.
Masterpiece Purchased For Bentonville Museum (, May 13, 2005)
BENTONVILLE — The Walton Family Foundation announced Thursday it has purchased the historic American work of art "Kindred Spirits" and will permanently house Asher B. Durand’s masterwork in a major new art museum to be built in Bentonville.
Sotheby’s announced that the price of the masterpiece exceeded the record price for an American painting at auction. The eclipsed auction record for an American painting is George Bellows’ "Polo Crowd," which was auctioned at Sotheby’s in 1999 for $27.5 million.
The museum, named Crystal Bridges, takes its name from an inspired glass-and-wood design that will traverse a local spring-fed stream. Designed by Boston-based architect Moshe Safdie, the museum is expected to open in May 2009 and will present perspectives on the flow of America’s history and heritage through the eyes of the nation’s most influential artists.
Art, Money and Power (, May 11, 2005)
We had "Sensation" at the Brooklyn Museum, a gift to Charles Saatchi, whose collection it advertised, and shows at the Whitney of artists (Robert Rauschenberg and Agnes Martin come to mind) virtually packaged by the gallery that represents them. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has been renting its Monets to a casino in Las Vegas, while the Guggenheim, which gave us the atrocious "Armani," an even more egregious paid advertisement, is spending resources shopping itself around the globe while canceling shows here at home.
...Now comes the Met with its current Chanel-sponsored Chanel show, a fawning trifle that resembles a fancy showroom...
Museums deal in two kinds of currency, after all: the quality of their collections and public trust. Squander one, and the other suffers. People visit MoMA or the Met to see great art; they will even consider art that they don't know or don't like as great because the museum says so. But this delicate cultural ecosystem depends on the public's perception that museums make independent judgments - that they're not just shilling for trustees or politicians or sponsors.
Architect Santiago Calatrava Embraces New York (, Apr 25, 2005)
Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who has become ubiquitous world-side, has two major New York City projects: the $2 billion transportation hub for ground zero and a residential tower comprising 12 cantilevered cubes on South Street, overlooking the East River. In October, his sculpture, watercolors, drawings and architectural designs are to be shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
"I have been seeking New York for many years," said Mr. Calatrava, who has made New York City his family's home base after 14 years of living in both Paris and Zurich. "I was looking without knowing it for a place like New York."...
Mr. Calatrava said he considered architecture "the greatest of all the arts" because it embraces the others - music, painting, sculpture. "I couldn't be an architect," he said, "without doing those things."
At the same time, Mr. Calatrava - who spends three to four hours of every day sculpturing, painting or drawing - said he considered himself more an artist than an architect
The Public Theater's 50th Season Bears Stamp of Leaders New and Old (, Apr 22, 2005)
In his first major announcement as the new artistic director of the Public Theater, Oskar Eustis yesterday unveiled the company's 50th-anniversary season, a roster that includes both a dollop of his past work and a hefty dose of artists associated with his predecessor, George C. Wolfe.
How To Make A 9/11 Movie? Very Carefully (, Apr 20, 2005)
Appropriately enough, the first in an expected wave of movies and television projects explicitly about the trauma of 9/11 will make its debut in New York on Friday at the TriBeCa Film Festival, which itself was started to bring a measure of financial and psychic relief to Lower Manhattan months after the attacks.
But the new picture, "The Great New Wonderful," is anything but explicit.
Crashing jets, falling towers, Islamic terrorists and fleeing workers are nowhere to be seen. Instead the inexpensively made movie, which stars Maggie Gyllenhaal, Tony Shalhoub and Olympia Dukakis, zeroes in on a handful of New Yorkers a year after the attacks as they struggle to cope with emotions - grief, rage, helplessness - that seem inexplicable, and that have no obvious outlet.
Details Of The High Line, "Urban Oasis 30 Feet In The Air," Go On Display At Museum Of Modern Art (, Apr 19, 2005)
he mile-and-a-half path of concrete planks will weave among plants and wildflowers like a curvilinear boardwalk meandering through a floating garden. Some entrances will emphasize a gradual ascent from the grit and congestion of the city's streets to an oasis of pastoral calm. The 22-block stretch is to include the unexpected: an adjustable chair that can become a table or a chaise longue; a walkway flanked by a wetland with lily pads.
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These details and others have been refined over the last several months by designers who plan to create an elevated public walkway out of the High Line, an abandoned railway that runs 30 feet above the city between 10th and 11th Avenues in Manhattan, from 34th Street to Gansevoort Street in the meatpacking district. The most recent digital drawings and renderings, including a 20-foot-long architectural model, go on display at the Museum of Modern Art tomorrow.
Robert Moses, Superhero? (, Mar 10, 2005)
What is the legacy of the man responsible for building many of the city's beloved parks and river crossings, but also acre after acre of controversial public housing? Was Mr. Moses, who envisioned Jones Beach and Lincoln Center as well as the ruinous Cross Bronx Expressway, a savior or a scourge?
Particularly since the publication in 1974 of Robert Caro's book "The Power Broker," an exhaustive, critical look at the master planner, Mr. Moses' life and work have come under intense scrutiny by academics and policy wonks. Now it is time for an absurdist theater troupe to take a whack.
"Boozy: The Life, Death and Subsequent Vilification of Le Corbusier and, More Importantly, Robert Moses" opens at the Ohio Theater in SoHo on Tuesday. The latest production of "Les Freres Corbusier" - a group best known for staging last year's Obie-winning "A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant" - places Mr. Moses as the visionary hero in an epic struggle between heaven-sent inspiration and group-think mediocrity. Along the way, the show sketches the combustible, imagined romance between the antiestablishment urban theorist Jane Jacobs and the group's namesake, the architect Le Corbusier. It features a walk-on by a Daniel Libeskind impersonator (the man himself was approached but declined), and depicts Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Benito Mussolini and Josef Goebbels - played by obliging rabbits in full costume - as they implore Mr. Moses to transform the world through sacred geometry
Did The Gates Project Really Cost $21 Million? (, Mar 5, 2005)
How did Christo and Jean Claude come up with the $21 million price-tag for "The Gates," the art project that spread one million square feet of nylon fabric throughout Central Park in February. Since the artists paid for it themselves, there is no public accounting of the cost, and they refuse to itemize.
A reporter attempts to discover the real figure, which some believe is considerably less than $21 million.
Guggenheim Museum Loses Top Donor in Rift on Spending and Vision (, Jan 20, 2005)
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has lost its biggest benefactor.
Citing "differences in direction," Peter B. Lewis, the Cleveland philanthropist who has been a trustee of the museum since 1993 and most recently its chairman, resigned yesterday. He has given the institution about $77 million, nearly four times as much as any other board member in its history.
He resigned during a three-hour board meeting. Last night Mr. Lewis said that he wished the museum would "concentrate more on New York and less on being scattered all over the world."
MTA To Revive Ban On Subway Photography (, Jan 10, 2005)
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has revived a plan to ban all photography on public transit and in stations as a way to prevent terrorist surveillance of the system. Artists who often take photographs in the subways are howling and do not believe it will have any impact on thwarting terrorists who can use hidden cameras to do their dirty work.
Pew File-Sharing Survey Gives a Voice to Artists (, Dec 15, 2004)
Pew Research Center's Pew Internet and American Life Project releases results of survey that combines and compares opinions of general public, artists of various stripes and musicians about Internet and file-sharing; artists are divided but not deeply concerned about sharing unauthorized copies of music and movies online.
Payola Probe Expanding (, Dec 15, 2004)
The Federal Communications Commission closed the first phase of its investigation into radio consolidation and payola -- the practice of record labels paying radio stations for airplay -- on November 1st. Several congressional leaders are also looking into the issue.
Eliot Spitzer's next target... (, Dec 15, 2004)
After Wall Street, mutual funds and insurance, N.Y. Attorney General eyes record labels: report.
Art Fuses With Urbanity in an Aesthetically Pure Redesign of the Modern (, Dec 15, 2004)
"The Museum of Modern Art is back. And just in time. The city has grown up since the Modern shut its doors to build its new home two and a half years ago. The hole left by the twin towers. A war in Iraq. A polarized electorate. Our culture is in a crisis as critical as any since the cold war period when Modernism reached its final, exuberant bloom.
That may be the reason the new Modern seems so comforting. Designed by the Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi with Kohn Pedersen Fox, the expanded museum is a serene composition that weaves art, architecture and the city into a transcendent aesthetic experience
The building... may disappoint those who believe the museum's role should be as much about propelling the culture forward as about preserving our collective memory."
A Look Back At The East Village Art Scene (, Dec 15, 2004)
"The roiling, polymorphous East Village art scene of the 1980's is ready for its close-up, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art is on hand with a camera: "East Village USA," a motley, incomplete but remarkable exhibition squeezed into the museum's temporary headquarters in Chelsea."
Preventing Performances (, May 1, 2003)
How the new Bureau for Citizenship and Immigration Services-the former INS, now under the Department of Homeland Security-is affecting cultural exchange.
Plans for Cultural Complex At Ground Zero Take Form (, May 1, 2003)
American Express has agreed to support a Museum of Freedom, planned as part of Daniel Libeskind's proposal for the World Trade Center site. The Museum of the City of New York and the New York Historical Society have expressed interest in being part of the museum.
Back-Lot Dreams (, Apr 1, 2003)
Plans for Steiner Studios, a $150 million 15-acre studio complex in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, are going forward.
Every Exit Is an Entrance (, Apr 1, 2003)
Hell's Kitchen is becoming a new arts district, with galleries and theaters moving there in search of cheaper rents and more spacious homes.
Save Live Broadway (, Mar 4, 2003)
Sponsored by Local 802, this site provides updates about negotiations, media
coverage, and information about protesting the League’s actions.
Thearters Against War (, Mar 4, 2003)
The official site of Theaters Against War, a coalition of some 120 New York
theaters that plans an open-air demonstration against war on Sunday, March
2, as well as scores of pro-peace events throughout the city.
Plans Cancelled For Guggenheim Museum In East River (, Dec 31, 2002)
Bowing to hard economic times, the Guggenheim Foundation scrapped plans yesterday to build a vast museum on lower Manhattan's east waterfront.
