Manhattan Borough President Allocates Entire $50m Discretionary Budget to the Arts

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Friends of the High Line and Taller Boricua are among 83 cultural organisations and schools in the New York City borough of Manhattan that are set to benefit from sizeable grants following a move by the borough’s president, partly inspired by President Trump’s cuts to arts funding. 

Manhattan borough president Brad Hoylman-Sigal told The New York Times on Tuesday that he intends to spend his entire $50 million discretionary budget on arts and culture.

The budget is divided into smaller grants and is usually distributed between sectors including housing, parks and recreation, and public housing. However, this year, grants of between $60,000 and $2 million will be allocated to 55 cultural institutions and 28 schools.

 “We think this is a boost of morale for the sector,” Hoylman-Sigal told The New York Times. “I know the importance of arts and culture to our society, to the economy and to future generations of Manhattanites and New Yorkers.”

 A $1,000,000 grant will go to the Puerto Rican Workshop, which includes Taller Boricua, the art activism organisation that champions marginalised artists, preserves cultural traditions and utilises creative expression as a way of strengthening community.

 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the International Centre for Photography and the Art Students League of New York will all benefit from $500,000 grants. Friends of the High Line has been allocated $250,000 and the Morgan Library and Museum $200,000.

In education, the Fiorello H LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts will get $500,000 to update art spaces that have not been renovated for four decades.

The New York Studio School, founded in 1964 with the intention of pioneering a new approach to art education, will receive $250,000. Other educational institutions set to benefit from the plan include Clinton School for Writers and Artists ($200,000) and the High School of Art and Design ($100,000).

The largest grants of $2 million will go to the American Museum of Natural History, El Museo del Barrio, the Ballet Hispánico of New York, the Museum of Chinese in America, and the Schomburg Centre for Research in Black Culture.

On his Facebook page, Hoylman-Segal said: “Arts and culture are not luxuries. They are economic engines and essential civic infrastructure.

“This year, we committed the entirety of Manhattan’s $50 million capital budget to arts and culture, leveraging public investment to strengthen institutions that drive our economy, educate our children, attract visitors and enrich communities in every corner of the borough.”