A decade ago, a multimedia artist from The Bronx got a lucky break. She was one of the winners of a lottery - to which over 53,000 people applied - that allowed her to live in one of the 89 affordable apartments in a stately former public school in East Harlem. At the time, she was living in Staten Island, paying for a space that was smaller, more expensive and more difficult for people who wanted to see her art to visit.
We are a sixty-year-old organization, and our operating model must change significantly... That approach is no longer sustainable. The arts aren't a competing priority; they are interwoven into the very efficiency of our city.