PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Jane Carey, Director of Community and Government Affairs at Whitney Museum of Art
1:20:13
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156 sec
Jane Carey from the Whitney Museum of Art discussed the museum's collaborations with neighboring institutions and the business community to support engagement initiatives. She highlighted the success of West Side Fest, an annual art celebration involving multiple cultural nonprofits, and the benefits of being located within the Meatpacking Business Improvement District (BID).
- West Side Fest 2024 served over 130,000 visitors and generated significant media impressions for the neighborhood
- Partnerships with the Meatpacking BID have made it easier and more affordable for the Whitney to activate public spaces for free programming
- A recent collaboration with the Ailey School Faculty for free public dance classes attracted over 6,000 visitors
Jane Carey
1:20:13
Great.
1:20:13
Thank you.
1:20:14
Hi.
1:20:14
Good morning, everybody, and thank you, chair for leasing, chair, Rivera, and members of it.
1:20:20
Yes.
1:20:20
Okay.
1:20:21
Hi.
1:20:21
Good morning.
1:20:22
Thank you for for holding this hearing today and offering the opportunity to speak about the Whitney's collaborations with its neighboring institutions, nonprofit, and business community, which has helped to support key institutional priorities like raising engagement with our new free admission initiatives, free Friday night, and free 2nd Sundays.
1:20:40
The Whitney's museum dedicated to the art of America and located in the meatpacking district on Manhattan's west side.
1:20:45
The neighborhood has always been a hub for culture.
1:20:48
And in recent years, with the opening of new organizations like the Shed and Little Island, we've really cemented our neighborhood as one of the city's great cultural communities.
1:20:56
The museum is joined with 20 other cultural nonprofits to form the West Side Cultural Network.
1:21:01
We're a group that meets regularly to discuss how we can support each other's missions and also to produce the annual art celebration West Side Fest.
1:21:08
Westside Fest launched in 2023 to welcome New Yorkers to visit our institutions with free and low cost special programming and spotlighting all our community has to offer.
1:21:17
The 1st year event welcomed in over fifty thousand people to participating institutions in the 2024 event served over 130,000 visitors.
1:21:26
The event was promoted by a communications plan which earned over 609,000,000 median impressions for the neighborhood.
1:21:32
And it was made possible thanks to financial and in kind support from our business community, including Bloomberg Connects, McCada Little Spain, Chelsea Market, Pier 57, Amazon, Vicks Playground, and the meat packing district business, meat packing bid.
1:21:45
We're also so grateful to the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and our elected officials that helped to support this event with spotlighting opportunities on how we could better get the word out to New York and joining us at a kickoff event to promote it.
1:21:58
I also wanna take a moment to speak about us being located within the meatpacking bid.
1:22:03
The bid manages our open streets program, and we're very grateful for their leadership there.
1:22:07
Partnering with them has made it less time consuming and significantly more affordable for us to activate our public space to offer free special programming.
1:22:17
Okay.
1:22:18
Alright.
1:22:18
Thank you.
1:22:19
We most recently worked with them on Sunday, October 13th, to offer free public dance classes on our street with Ailey School Faculty as part of our edges of Ailey exhibition.
1:22:31
The public worked with dancers on the street, and the commissioner of Cultural Affairs also joined us for this for this October 22nd Sunday, which served over 6000 visitors.
1:22:40
It's one of our highest attended events so far.
1:22:43
So thank you very much for spotlighting the ways that we can partner with our community and government to help strengthen our offerings.
