Cultural Space Is Infrastructure: Testimony from the NYC Council’s Affordability Hearing
Written by Melanie Sasmito
On Monday, February 9, artists, cultural workers, service organizations, and leaders from across the arts ecosystem gathered to speak at the NYC Council’s Oversight Hearing on affordability in New York City’s arts and cultural sector.
The testimony reinforced what many in our community are already experiencing, and IndieSpace sees in our work every day. The affordability crisis is driving artists out of the city.
As the Center for an Urban Future outlined in its Creative New York 2025 report, New York’s creative workforce is shrinking for the first time in decades. Artists earn less here after adjusting for the cost of living, more than 50 cultural venues have closed since 2020, and nonprofits are absorbing rising operating costs while public and philanthropic funding struggles to keep pace.
And it’s not only artists who are feeling the strain. Borough arts councils and service organizations, the very infrastructure that supports the sector, described operating in constant precarity. They serve thousands of New Yorkers and regrant millions of dollars each year while navigating late city payments, short-term contracts and leases, and limited operational support. Without stable, multi-year funding, even these systems cannot effectively anchor the creative workforce.
Across testimonies, one message was clear: cultural space is infrastructure. As Randi Berry, IndieSpace’s Executive Director, shared, "Soaring rents, speculative development, short-term leases, and opaque real estate practices are pushing arts organizations out of neighborhoods and out of New York City altogether."
We suggest the city could prioritize small-budget arts groups in community facility spaces, require cultural carve-outs in office-to-residential conversions, create housing pathways that reflect artists’ fluctuating incomes, and reinstate acquisition tools that help nonprofits secure permanent, affordable space. Without sustainable, long-term policy solutions, New York risks becoming a city that consumes culture rather than creates it.
We’re grateful the Council is centering this conversation, and we’re ready to partner on the real estate and policy strategies that keep artists in New York City.
A notable announcement from the hearing is that the Manhattan Borough President introduced a “Manhattan Multiplier for Arts and Culture,” dedicating the entirety of the borough president’s FY27 capital funds to affordable and accessible cultural projects, with plans to leverage private and philanthropic matches to strengthen long-term cultural infrastructure.
Learn more about that funding program here. The application deadline is 5pm on Thursday, February 19.
