For arts, many challenges ahead
City’s resurgence tied to revival of cultural scene
Broadway is planning to start performances of at least three dozen shows before the end of the year, but producers do not know if there will be enough tourists — who typically make up two-thirds of the audience — to support all of them.
The Metropolitan Opera is planning a September return, but only if its musicians agree to pay cuts.
And New York’s vaunted nightlife scene — the dance clubs and live venues that give the city its reputation for never sleeping — has been stymied by the slow, glitchy rollout of a federal aid program.
The return of arts and entertainment is crucial to New York’s economy, and not just because it is a major industry that employed some 93,500 people before the pandemic and paid them $7.4 billion in wages, according to the state comptroller’s office. Culture is also part of the lifeblood of New York — a magnet for visitors and residents alike that will play a key role if the city is to remain vital in an era when the ease of remote work has businesses rethinking the need to stay in central business districts.
“What is a city without social, cultural and creative synergies?” Gov. Andrew Cuomo asked earlier this year in an address on the importance of the arts to the city’s recovery. “New York City is not New York without Broadway.”
And Mayor Bill de Blasio — who could seem indifferent to the arts earlier in his tenure — has become a cultural cheerleader in the waning days of his administration, starting a $25 million program to put artists back to work, creating a Broadway vaccination site for theater industry workers and planning a “homecoming concert” in Central Park next month featuring Bruce Springsteen,
Jennifer Hudson and Paul Simon to herald the city’s return.
Eli Dvorkin, editorial and policy director at the Center for an Urban Future, said, “The way I look at it, there is not going to be a strong recovery for New York City without the performing arts leading the way.” He added, “People gravitate here because of the city’s cultural life.”
There are signs of hope everywhere: The Whitney and the Brooklyn Museum are crowded again, although timed reservations are still required. Foo Fighters brought rock back to Madison Square Garden.
But some of the greatest tests for the city’s cultural scene lie ahead.
Hunkering down — cutting staff, slashing programming — turned out to be a brutal but effective survival strategy. Arts workers faced record unemployment, and some have yet to return to work, but many businesses and organizations were able to slash expenses and wait until it was safe to reopen. Now that it’s time to start hiring and spending again, many cultural leaders are worried: Can they thrive with fewer tourists and commuters? How much will safety protocols cost? Will the donors who stepped up during the emergency stick around for a less glamorous period of rebuilding?
“Next year may prove to be our most financially challenging,” said Bernie Telsey, one of the three artistic directors at MCC Theater, an off-broadway nonprofit. “In many ways, it’s like a startup now — it’s not just turning the lights on. Everything is a little uncertain. It’s like starting all over again.”
Safety protocols have been changing rapidly, as more people get vaccinated, but there is still apprehension about moving too fast. “On a fundamental level, our health is at stake,” said Lin-manuel Miranda, the creator of “Hamilton,” which is planning to resume performances on Sept. 14. “You get this wrong, and we open too soon, and then we respike and we close again — that’s almost unthinkable.”
Some presenters worry that, with fewer tourists, arts organizations will be battling one another to win the attention of New Yorkers and people from the region.
Another looming challenge: concerns about public safety. Bystanders were struck by stray bullets during shooting incidents in Times Square in May and June, prompting de Blasio to promise additional officers to protect and reassure the public.
The economic stakes for the city are high. Broadway shows give work to actors and singers and dancers and ushers, but also, indirectly, to waiters and bartenders and hotel clerks and taxi drivers, who then go on to spend a portion of their paychecks on goods and services.
At the tourist-dependent Metropolitan Museum of Art, attendance is back, but not all the way: It’s now open five days a week, and has drawn 10,000 people many days; before the pandemic it was open seven days a week and averaged 14,000 daily visitors. Plus: More of the visitors now are local, and they don’t have to pay admission; the Met continues to project a $150 million revenue loss.
If the Met, the largest museum in the country, is struggling, that means smaller arts institutions are hurting even more.
The city’s music scene has faced its own challenges — from the diviest bars to nightclubs to the plush Metropolitan Opera. Many are waiting to see if they will get help from a $16 billion federal grant fund intended to preserve music clubs, theaters and other live-event businesses devastated by the pandemic. But the rollout of the program, the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant initiative, has been slow and bumpy.
“We have a lot of work to do to make sure that people know that we’re open,” said Thomas Schumacher of Disney Theatrical Productions, “to make people comfortable coming in ... and get through the winter.”