Displaying items by tag: NYC

In a deal on the fiscal year 2016 budget struck late Monday night, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito announced an extra $39 million for the city’s libraries. The additional funding will allow for a restoration of six-day service at all branches across the city’s three library systems (Brooklyn, New York, and Queens) and create some 500 new jobs, Library Journal reported.

“This is a long time coming, and a very hard earned victory for libraries in New York City,” said City Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer, whom the Journal describes as “one of City Hall’s most tireless advocates for libraries.”

The Metropolitan Museum's concurrent presentation of four acclaimed and widely attended exhibitions in the summer 2011 season—Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty; Anthony Caro on the Roof; Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective; and Rooms with a View: The Open Window in the 19th Century—generated $908 million in spending by regional, national, and international tourists to New York, according to a visitor survey the Museum released today. Using the industry standard for calculating tax revenue impact, the study found that the direct tax benefit to the City and State from out-of-town visitors to the Museum totaled some $90.8 million. (Results of visitor survey are below.)

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, on view from May 4 through August 7, 2011, drew 661,509 visitors. Attendance for Anthony Caro on the Roof was 306,542 from April 26 through August 26, 2011, when this survey was completed (the exhibition will close on October 30, 2011). Attendance for Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective, which opened April 13, was 183,553 through August 26. Rooms with a View: The Open Window in the 19th Century, on view from April 25 through July 4, 2011, drew 194,398 visitors.

The survey found that 68% of the visitors traveled from outside the five boroughs of New York. Of these, 20% were from the Tri-State area, 38% were from other states, and 42% were international visitors. Eighty-two percent of travelers reported staying overnight in the City; of these, 72% stayed in a hotel or motel. The median length of stay in the City was 5 days.

These visitors reported spending an average $927 per person ($599 for lodging, dining, sightseeing, entertainment, admission to museums, and local transportation and another $328 for shopping) during their stay in New York.

Fifty-two percent of travelers cited visiting the Met as a key motivating factor in visiting New York. Of travelers, 45% made their first visit to the Museum, and another 23% made their first visit in several years.

The Museum maintains a policy of welcoming visitors to special exhibitions without imposing extra fees. All exhibitions are free with the Museum's suggested admission.

Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum, stated: "As the results of this audience survey suggest, special exhibitions have the power to draw new visitors to the Museum. And after they have attended an exhibition at the Met once, we are confident they will come again. Through our commitment to a robust program of new offerings in the coming years, we hope to continue to attract new audiences to the Museum and thereby to the City and the State."

Emily K. Rafferty, President of the Metropolitan Museum—who also serves as chair of NYC & Company, the city's official tourism agency—noted: "Through its roster of highly engaging exhibitions on an ever-changing selection of topics, the Met continues to appeal to a broad cross-section of the population. We are pleased to announce that the Museum remains a premier destination for visitors to New York, and that the revenues it generates for the City and the State show substantial and continued growth."

The survey of visitors to Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, Anthony Caro on the Roof, Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective, and Rooms with a View: The Open Window in the 19th Century is the most recent of a series of audience studies undertaken by the Metropolitan to calculate the public economic impact of its special exhibition program. In 2010, the Museum found that the concurrent presentation of Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Doug + Mike Starn on the Roof: Big Bambú, and American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity had generated $784 million in economic impact; in 2007, the concurrent showing of Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde and Americans in Paris, 1860-1900 had generated $377 million in economic impact; in 2004, its El Greco retrospective had generated $345 million in economic impact, and in 2000 reported that visitors to Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids had generated some $307 million.

Using a scale of 1 to 10 to determine how important seeing one or more of the four exhibitions was in their decision to visit New York City, 28% of visitors surveyed in the study gave a rating of 8 or higher. Fifty-two percent gave a rating of 8 or higher to visiting the Metropolitan Museum in general. The economic impact is estimated to be $254 million for just those individuals who indicated that seeing the exhibitions was important in their decision to visit New York City and $472 million for those who wanted to see the Museum in general, yielding tax benefits of $25.4 and $47.2 million respectively.

The landmark exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty featured some 100 ensembles and 70 accessories that spanned the late British designer's prolific 19-year career. His iconic designs were always at the vanguard of fashion, due to his unique combination of technical ingenuity with an innovative sensibility. The exhibition was the eighth most popular exhibition ever held at the Metropolitan, and the most visited of the special exhibitions organized by The Costume Institute. In response to public interest, the Museum extended the exhibition by one week and added extra viewing times—including late hours through midnight on the last weekend—so the public could see the exhibition when the Museum was normally closed.

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty was made possible by Alexander McQueen™. Additional support was provided in partnership with American Express and Condé Nast.

Installed on the Museum's dramatic Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, with unparalleled panoramic views of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline, Anthony Caro on the Roof includes a selection of the sculptor's works in painted and unpainted industrial steel. Caro is considered the most influential and prolific British sculptor of his generation, and is widely regarded as a key figure in the development of modernist sculpture in the last 60 years. The installation is the 14th consecutive single-artist installation for The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden.

The exhibition was made possible by Bloomberg.

Additional support was provided by Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky.

Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective traced the artist's investigation of drawing as an activity both independent from and linked to his sculptural practice. The exhibition included 60 works from the 1970s to the present. Over the past quarter of a century, Serra has invented new drawing techniques and radically changed the practice and definition of drawing.

The exhibition was made possible in part by the Jane and Robert Carroll Fund.

It was organized by the Menil Collection, Houston.

Rooms with a View: The Open Window in the 19th Century was the first exhibition to focus on the motif of the open window as captured by German, Danish, French, and Russian artists around 1810-1820. A poetic play of light and perceptible silence filled the 31 oil paintings and 26 works on paper included in the presentation.

The exhibition was made possible by the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation and The Isaacson-Draper Foundation.

New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art, which is borrowing for the first time to build a new site in lower Manhattan, pared back yields after investors placed orders for more than twice the $125 million offering.

“Institutional investors have plenty of room for this name because they don’t have any credit exposure to it,” said Fred Yosca, head of fixed-income trading at BNY Mellon Capital Markets LLC in New York.

The securities, rated A, the sixth-highest grade from Standard & Poor’s, yielded 3.7 percent for $50 million of debt due July 2021, the largest portion. Morgan Stanley, the underwriter, lowered yields on three different maturities, including a 0.13 percentage point cut to 4.87 percent on the 20- year bonds, according to a person familiar with the transaction who declined to be identified because the person wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the deal.

Strong demand prompted Morgan Stanley to compress the offering period to one day from two, the person said. More than 21 investors offered a total $286 million in orders while individuals were alloted $57.5 million, the person said.

The Whitney, founded in 1931 and specializing in contemporary U.S. art, has a “non-binding memorandum of understanding” from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art for it to assume operating costs at the Whitney’s Madison Avenue building, according to the bond offering document. The Whitney expects the arrangement to be final later in the year, and last for eight years beginning in 2015, when the museum opens its downtown space.

Museum Deals

The Met and the Whitney announced their deal May 11, the day after the Museum of Modern Art agreed to buy the headquarters of the American Folk Art Museum, which is in default on bond payments.

The new location, which will be more than twice the size of the Whitney’s current space, is expected to boost the museum’s average annual attendance to 720,800 in fiscal 2016 from 392,324 a year during fiscal years 2008 to 2010, Fitch Ratings said in a June 30 report.

The Whitney will depend on gifts and contributions to pay its debt principal. Its interest-only debt burden will reach 21 percent of its expenses, said Joanne G. Ferrigan and Douglas J. Kilcommons, Fitch analysts, in the report.

The museum’s endowment totaled $185.6 million as of June 30, according to offering documents. It expects to raise $625 million from its capital campaign by 2015. As of last month, it had pledges of $411 million, or about 66 percent, the documents said. The Whitney anticipates full payment of those pledges by 2020, 11 years before the final maturity of the bonds.

Ben Stiller is getting some of the biggest names in contemporary art to help Haitian children affected by last year's earthquake.

The actor and comedian announced Wednesday that he is partnering with New York art dealer David Zwirner on a benefit auction called "Artists for Haiti," scheduled for Sept. 22 at Christie's auction house.

Some of the artists who have already donated works include Chuck Close, Paul McCarthy, Jasper Johns, Dan Flavin, Jeff Koons and Hiroshi Sugimoto.

"Over a year after the massive quake in Haiti, there remains a huge need to rebuild and help the country," Stiller said in a statement. "David and I are working to help raise funds so that the children of Haiti have an opportunity to receive the education they need to lead a better life and fulfill the potential of this vibrant and important culture."

April 28—May, 2011
Park Avenue Armory at 67th Street, NYC
For information call 707.343.1301 or visit www.springshownyc.com

The Art and Antique Dealers League of America (AADLA) are proud to announce a brand new art fair opening in April 2011. The Spring Show NYC will feature over fifty-five top-notch dealers, many of whom are members of the esteemed AADLA. Taking place during Art and Antiques Week in New York, Clinton Howell, the League’s President, thinks that the show will stand out from the crowd. Howell says, “The Spring Show has an outstanding line-up and I think it will generate new interest in art and antique fairs in New York City.” The League will offer a guide listing all of the satellite events that will take place around Manhattan that week. Appealing to all tastes, The Spring Show NYC will include fine and decorative arts, rare books, and tapestries. The works which range from antiquities to twentieth century masterworks will all be vetted by a panel of experts for authenticity and comprehensive labeling. Exhibiting dealers include Mary Helen McCoy, Thomas Colville, Questroyal, Leo Kaplan, and Charles and Rebekkah Clark. An opening night benefit preview will be held on April 27, 2011 at the Armory. Sponsored by the online luxury marketplace for antiques, estate and fine jewelry, vintage couture and fine art, 1stdibs.com, the preview’s proceeds will all go to the ASPCA. The renowned interior designer, Lars Bolander, will apply his signature style of combining antiques with whimsical decorative objects to create a dramatic mise-en-scene at the Armory for the duration of the show.