News

Artists in Motion looks at the lives of four artists as they develop and share their struggles, inspirations, and creative work. The  artists include: Claudia Acuña, vocalist, The Jazz Gallery; Tania Bruguera, performance artist, Creative Time; Fran Romo, dancer, Gallim Dance; and Jose Zayas, director, Spanish Theatre Repertory Company.

The New York Times offered a stark assessment of New York City's preparedness for serious flooding, which would have a crippling impact on its 520 miles of coast. In the article, executive director Eddie Bautista of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, Inc., an RBF grantee, highlighted the urgency of preparing industrial areas on the waterfront, where many low-income residents live.

Four of the Fund’s Charles E. Culpeper Arts and Culture grantees—Creative Time, Gallim Dance, Spanish Theatre Repertory Company, and The Jazz Gallery—are featured in the videos, which take the viewer from behind the scenes to actual performances.

The Story of Brownfields, written by Anita Nager, a recognized leader in the environmental field, documents the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s 14-year history of brownfield grantmaking and presents a narrative of the foundation’s choices, against a timeline its grantees’ activities and the brownfield remediation and redevelopment efforts of New York City and New York state.

New York City's Office of Environmental Remediation has published a series of videos on brownfields reclamation and remediation. Cleaning Up NYC is a four-part video series about these previously developed urban sites that have been affected by environmental contamination limiting their future uses and often falling into disuse.

Doreen Wang, program assistant for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s New York City and Southern China programs, reflects on her experience of discovering that “those random, fenced in strips of land in New York City, that that have been empty and abandoned for years” were brownfields.

Poet Kwoya Fagin reflects on her residency at The Pocantico Center. The impact of the time and setting were invaluable to her as an artist and as an individual, she says.

Nonprofit dance organizations are significant contributors to New York City's economy and residents' quality of life, according to a report published by Dance/NYC. The report also found that the city's dance organizations—particularly smaller groups—demonstrate a "strong start-up culture of dance," with a handful of staff producing high levels of new creations.

The Americas Society has released the first comparative white paper that examines the economic impact of immigration-related city policies on the local business environment. The paper, The Economic Impact of Immigrant-Related Local Ordinances, focuses on 53 cities that passed either restrictive or non-restrictive city ordinances between 2006 and 2008, and which were still being enforced through 2009. 

Ben Rodriguez-Cubeñas, New York City program director, reviews an extraordinary summer of arts and culture, and looks ahead to an exciting fall season of programming. But, he argues, none of it would be possible without support from enthusiastic audiences made up of New York City residents and tourists, as well as private donors.