Canaries in the goldmine: The emerging arts in New York City

A great piece on the reality of real estate in New York City -

Canaries in the goldmine: The emerging arts in New York City.

Recently two developers walked into the Brooklyn apartment of my friend and told him he had nothing to worry about - they weren’t going to tear down the building he was living in for at least another year. My friend, a filmmaker, thinks he can’t possibly afford to stay in New York, and he’s not alone.

The canaries in New York City’s real estate gold mine – the emerging arts – are no longer talking about the next show they hope to land, they’re talking about the next city they think they can land in once their current lease runs out.

But for many that lease on life has already run out. Affordable habitat in the cultural ecosystem is becoming hard to find. For everyone.

Within the next few months, ten off-Broadway theaters will permanently close*.
To read Miriam Souccar’s prescient article ”Off Broadway theaters take their last bow” in the 6.05.06 Crain’s New York,
click here.

The price of real estate has risen so far that, from a cultural point of view, in three to five years we’ll be experiencing a fundamentally different idea of what it means to live in New York City and be a New Yorker. City Hall must find ways to incentivize rebuilding the emerging arts infrastructure that’s evaporating in our white-hot real estate market, or it won’t be built.

Click here for the whole story, and be sure to visit Galapagos Art Space.