New York City’s Arts and Crafts Sector Rebounds from Sept. 11

A construction crew prepared the “The Sphere” in the Battery Park section of Manhattan on March 10 for a dedication ceremony marking six months since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. “The Sphere,” which stood in the fountain of the trade center plaza, was gashed and partially crushed by falling debris. It was created in 1971 by artist Fritz Koenig and was dedicated as a monument to world peace through world trade.

For art and craft lovers around the country, New York City is the cultural center … the true melting pot of artistic movements and creative expression. The city is home to some of the world’s most prestigious museums, galleries and artists, as well as to many other arts groups and individuals. All sectors contribute equally to the city’s artistic landscape, and all have suffered from the Sept. 11 attacks.

“We’re just beginning to feel the full impact [of the Sept. 11 attacks],” says Holly Hotchner, director of the American Craft Museum. Hotchner’s sentiment is shared by many involved in the city’s arts and crafts sector. From government organizations to museums and galleries to independent artists, the economic impact of the terrorist attacks has taken a huge toll on nearly all of the city’s art interests. Adding insult to injury, a weak economy, a new mayor and promised budget cuts in all city agencies have added even more pressure to New York City’s attempts to recover.

Decreased revenue for NYC arts organizations

Most of the country is still trying to return to some semblance of daily life before Sept. 11. But for those in New York City, still digging out of the rubble, it has been even harder. The arts institutions and organizations there are only beginning to fully comprehend the extent of the damage.

In November of last year, a highly anticipated study, conducted by the Center for an Urban Future, of the city’s arts and culture industry post-Sept. 11, provided the first glimpse of what New York City’s uphill battle would entail. Interviews with over 40 arts leaders and 150 arts institutions in the city revealed that 100 percent had experienced “substantial economic losses” since the attacks and expected more losses in the months ahead. In addition, every organization interviewed instituted a hiring freeze, and every organization, including 100 nonprofit arts groups, lost primary funding.

With so many arts organizations relying on government funding to support their programs, budget cuts can spell disaster. Before former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani left office, he instituted a 15 percent cut in the city’s $137 million annual arts budget, and the state imposed a 10 percent cut from the New York State Council on the Arts. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has taken on the daunting task of rebuilding Lower Manhattan, has announced another inevitable budget cut of 15 percent across all city agencies.

In addition to government budget cuts, many of the city’s arts organizations have imposed their own. Hotchner reports that the American Craft Museum’s budget was cut 10 percent from last year, and that nearly all museums in the city experienced the same cuts. “Most [museum] budgets will be very cautious this year,” she adds.

Arts organizations not only felt the pinch from the government, but other revenue streams were hurt as well. The organizations interviewed for the post-Sept. 11 arts study reported that an average of 43 percent of their funding comes from contributed income (foundation and corporate support, fund-raisers and individual giving), 41 percent from earned income (ticket sales, sales of gift items, renting space to other organizations), and 17 percent from the government. With a huge decrease in ticket sales, the retraction of many corporate gifts, and nearly all charitable giving directed toward disaster relief, the majority of the arts organizations interviewed in the months immediately after the attacks expected at least a 15 percent drop in revenue this year.

However, while financial contributions nearly disappeared immediately after the attacks, many organizations are now expressing hope that charitable giving will rebound. In fact, donations for nonprofits in the city have recently been given a boost by the managers of the September 11th Fund, which has raised $465 million for victims and victims’ families. The fund is reporting that enough money has been raised and is urging people to direct their contributions to other charitable causes, including the arts. The Andrew Mellon Foundation also recently announced a round of grants, totaling $6.6 million, to benefit the city’s American Craft Museum, Frances Tavern Museum, Drawing Center and El Museo del Barrio. For smaller organizations and artists, the 9-11 Arts Rebuilding Program, managed by the New York Foundation for the Arts, was established to provide emergency stabilization funds pooled from local and national foundations looking to assist the arts directly.

Other revenue streams, such as ticket sales, are also showing promise of recovery since their all-time lows following Sept. 11. After the attacks, when schools canceled field trips into the city and tourism virtually halted, museums were forced to offer free admission, which, in some cases, was underwritten by private donations, and extended hours to cushion the financial blow. Hotchner reports that while members and locals were loyal to the American Craft Museum, attendance and income from gift-shop sales were still off. In recent months, however, Hotchner says that attendance and income have both increased. In addition, the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art recently reported that attendance rebounded so strongly in recent months that they are hoping to do even better than last year.

Art and craft galleries feel the heat

Lining the streets of Lower Manhattan, in neighborhoods such as SoHo and Chelsea, are hundreds of galleries, crafts retailers and studios. Some would say that while the world-renowned museums and theaters anchor the city’s art scene, these independently owned galleries and studios, many surviving without any financial safety net, are the true pulse of the arts.

Richard Rothbard, owner of four An American Craftsman galleries in the city, felt the fallout of the attacks in all of his gallery locations. “This was a nasty, major disaster,” says Rothbard. Two of his Greenwich Village locations were closed for a week after Sept. 11, and then brought in just 20 percent of their usual income in the weeks that followed. His 6th Avenue location was eventually closed, and his Bleecker Street location is experiencing less foot traffic, but is surviving, he says.

Sales at Rothbard’s Rockefeller Center store were affected not only by the attacks, but also by the anthrax scare at nearby NBC Studios. His Sheraton Hotel location, a major store in his chain, had a huge drop in sales when Lehman Brothers, formerly housed at the World Trade Center, took over the hotel as temporary office space.

Linda Handler of Phoenix Gallery, the oldest artist-run gallery in the city, reports that sales and foot traffic for the gallery are slowly rebounding. “Since we are in SoHo … the gallery was closed that whole week [of the attacks],” says Handler. “We did re-open on the following Tuesday, but it was very slow … and the air quality was awful for at least a month and a half.”

On 14th Street in Chelsea, the Heller Gallery also experienced a slowdown in sales, but found that some customers were seeking comfort through art. “Immediately after the World Trade Center attack, we had a flurry of telephone calls inquiring as to whether or not we were open,” says Doug Heller. “Apparently, people were seeking solace in the beauty and healing qualities of the art shown in New York’s galleries and museums.” Heller reports that while one large sale of a sculpture was canceled after the attacks, another was made by a man who felt that life was too uncertain to defer pleasure. To compensate for the lost income to the gallery, Heller has represented the gallery in out-of-town art fairs and other non-New York-based events.

Too close to home

Perhaps more than any other arts organization in the city, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) suffered loss that is still as painfully fresh as it was that early September day. With offices and studio space on the 91st and 92nd floors of Tower One, and exhibition spaces around the WTC complex, the LMCC anchored the art scene in Lower Manhattan. The council’s free public performances on the plaza and rotating exhibitions provided the financial district a much-needed infusion of art and culture.

Michael Richards, a sculptor and installation artist who was part of the LMCC’s World Views World Trade Center Artist-in Residence program, helped the organization carry out its goal of bringing art and culture to the public. In his studio space on the 92nd floor, donated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, he had been busy working on a piece for his Tuskeegee Airmen installation. When the first plane struck the tower, Richards didn’t make it out.

For many artists, Richards’ death has made him the symbol of the quintessential emerging artist … he went to all the right schools and did all the right things, and was just beginning to get the attention he deserved. “Michael was a generous, incredible artist,” says Moukhtar Kocache, LMCC director of visual and media arts. “I think his death widened the circle of people touched by the attacks … it affected New York’s whole cultural world.”

Rebuilding Lower Manhattan

Today, working from temporary offices on Hudson Street, the LMCC has an even greater agenda — to help rebuild the city. Ironically, the collapse of the towers has provided an opportunity, albeit a bittersweet one, for the city’s arts and cultural sector to have a greater presence in Lower Manhattan. In the Center for an Urban Future study and a report prepared by New York New Visions, a group of over 400 designers, planners and architects, increasing the presence of the arts in Lower Manhattan is strongly recommended. Both efforts are only proposals — the first steps of what will be a long rebuilding process — but each urges the government to integrate the arts into the city’s future landscape. The New York New Visions proposal even suggests that the city should “offer incentives for the design of spaces that promote a variety of arts activities” and says that the “presence of artists makes Lower Manhattan robust, imaginative and appealing.” In addition, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, responsible for overseeing the rebuilding effort, has created an arts, education and tourism advisory council.

The healing power of the arts

For artists, responding to a tragedy of this magnitude is a complicated matter — the world looks to them for comfort and expects a swift response. Some have jumped headfirst into their work, while others are just now finding the strength to deal with the tragedy through their craft. Either way, the healing power of the arts has become vital to the city since Sept. 11. And nothing would seem to illustrate this more than a slightly crushed and battered bronze sculpture that once resided on the plaza of the WTC complex. On March 11, the six-month anniversary of the attack, Mayor Bloomberg presided over a ceremony in which this sculpture, “The Sphere,” was rededicated to the city and given a new home in Battery Park. The 27-foot sculpture, created by Fritz Koenig as a symbol of peaceful global commerce, survived the collapse of the towers, and will call Battery Park home until the redevelopment ends and it is summoned back to its former site.

In the months and years ahead, as New York City and the rest of the country comes to terms with the events of Sept. 11, the arts will no doubt play a major role. From hobbyists and master craftsmen to galleries and museums, to city and state agencies, the arts will help shape and inform the rebuilding process. In a city that has been battered, but is as indestructible as the giant bronze sphere, art will provide meaning and comfort, and will symbolize something so incredibly beyond words.