NY Times
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council to Run Artists’ Space on Governors Island
Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
Governors Island, above, will be home to a year-round artists’ studio and exhibition space
By ROBIN POGREBIN
Published: October 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.
The arts programming is expected to begin next spring in 14,000 square feet of space on the ground floor of a building on the island’s north shore. Building 110 is the “first building you see when you arrive” by ferry from Manhattan, said Leslie Koch, president of the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation.
The selection of the council is the latest effort to transform the 172-acre island in New York Harbor into a destination that is an integral part of city life.
The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council is perhaps best known for its work on rejuvenating the arts downtown after the terrorist attacks of 2001. But it also has extensive experience with studio programs, having brought artists into donated spaces around the city, beginning in 1997 with its World Views program at the World Trade Center.
Ms. Koch said the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation, established in 2003 to oversee the redevelopment, saw the arts as crucial to melding the island into the city’s dense urban culture.
“We’re learning from other neighborhoods in New York, where artists come first,” Ms. Koch said.
Last December a team of architects was selected to design a 40-acre park on the island’s southern half: the New York firms Diller Scofidio & Renfro, Rogers Marvel Architects, Quennell Rothschild & Partners, SMWM of San Francisco and the Dutch firm West 8. A master plan for the park is to be released in the spring.
Construction is also under way on a building for the New York Harbor School, a Bushwick, Brooklyn, public high school that will be the first permanent tenant on the island. It is expected to open there in the fall of 2010.
To solicit proposals for the island’s arts programming, the corporation said, it notified every arts organization that receives funding from the New York State Council on the Arts and from the city’s department of cultural affairs, Ms. Koch said. She declined to name the other applicants.
Maggie Boepple, president of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, said the island location would provide artistic inspiration. “It’s an extraordinary island,” she said. “The ability to step on a ferry and go to the middle of New York and have this relatively quiet place is going to produce some interesting work.”
The artists will keep bankers’ hours on the island: Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. (No overnight stays are permitted.) But during the island’s “public access” season — from the end of May to mid-October — artists will also be in their studios from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.
During this year’s public-access season, which ended on Oct. 12, Governors Island received a record 128,000 visitors.
“As we look at Governors Island development over time, the first phase has to build on the success we’re already having with visitors,” Ms. Koch said.
Providing weekend cultural activity for the public is part of the cultural council’s mission at Governors Island. Events will include master classes, open rehearsals, workshops and open-air performances. “There has to be a program of exhibition and site-specific work and open studios,” Ms. Koch said.
The building is to have 30 artist studios and three rehearsal studios, Ms. Boepple said. The council plans to have up to three performing-artist, dance or theater ensembles and up to 20 visual artists in the studios at one time. Residencies will last three weeks in the public-access season and three months the rest of the year. Artists will be selected by a panel of experts. The $1.5 million cost of restoring the program’s space is to be covered by the corporation. The cultural council will pay no rent for the space, but will be responsible for annual operating expenses like heat, insurance and electricity, estimated at $250,000.
“We believe very passionately that the arts are critical to our success, that we provide a unique setting for artists to interpret,” Ms. Koch said.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company