NYC’s D.I.Y Artists Tell Office of Night Life to #SaveNYCSpaces
An event at Market Hotel will be the last chance for public input before the Night Mayor is chosen
Smaller venues have played a vital role in crafting New York’s cultural and artistic identity, with local artists acting as the scene’s backbone. Now, artists are standing up to preserve their D.I.Y (Do It Yourself) spaces.
An artist-led event at Market Hotel in Brooklyn will give people in the D.I.Y scene a chance to voice their concerns to officials in the city’s Office of Nightlife. The event will take place on October 11th from 6:30p.m to 9:00p.m and will include speakers from performance spaces and galleries like Charlie Ahearn Director of “Wild Style”, DeeArah Wright of JACK Performance Space,
Rachel Nelson of Secret Project Robot, Ali Rosa-Salas of Abrons Arts Center and Molly Cox of The City Reliquary.
City Council member Rafael L Espinal, who first proposed the “Night Mayor” bill will also be attending alongside Tom Finkelpearl, the Commissioner of New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and Julie Menin, the Commissioner of Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment.
“Now more than ever, as we are seeing more and more music venues, bars and restaurants shutting their doors; more notably in its D.I.Y. scene, the city needs to stop the bleeding of its cultural hubs, or risk becoming corporatized and homogenized,” Espinal told the New York Times.
The Night Mayor will act as a liaison between the city and local venues. Gothamist reports that Shea Stadium’s closing was inspiration for the Night Mayor role. The event page notes that it will be the last chance the public will have input before the Night Mayor is chosen. But it won’t be an easy job.
A number of beloved D.I.Y venues have closed its doors in recent years, including Market Hotel (which is re-opening in November), Shea Stadium and Death by Audio. Despite the city’s rich history of fostering local talent, with rising real estate costs, construction costs and regulatory scrutiny, it seems that smaller venues have more hurdles to overcome.
Video by Kristine Villanueva / Music by André Rosa on Soundcloud
According to a report by the city of New York on the economic impact, trends and opportunities of music in the city, it costs upwards of $1 million to open a 100 to 300 person venue and as much as $5 million to open a 500 to 1,000 person venue. Some of these costs include construction, license complexity and the resources required to pass inspections. For local artists, that kind of money can be hard to put up. As a result, more than 20 percent of the city’s smaller venues have closed over the last 15 years, including places like CBGB and Wetlands Preserve.
While small venues represent only 4 percent of audiences in the city, a thriving local music scene helped raise famous acts like Blondie, Patti Smith and the Ramones out of obscurity. More recent D.I.Y acts include Mitski, who made the #29 spot of NPR’s 2016 best album of the year and War on Women who played at this year’s Warped Tour. But some bands continue to perform simply because they love music. The collaborative nature of the music scene contributes to a healthy local arts community.
Despite its challenges, the scene will continues to live on in basements, warehouses or anywhere artists can build a community. Given how much the scene has contributed to the city, it certainly deserves the tools and resources to do that.
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What can the night mayor do for the scene? What can he do for smaller venues? Let me know.
I’m a student at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism, working with the D.I.Y Scene in the greater New York area. Want to talk or collaborate? Shoot me an e-mail: kristine.villanueva@journalism.cuny.edu
