NYC artists find half the battle is studio rent
For artists in New York — one of the world’s most expensive cities — finding stable, affordable places to create and showcase their work can be challenging. A growing number of programs are offering solutions.
According to the census, 124,000 New Yorkers identified themselves as artists, writers or photographers in 2010. Many face a constant struggle to find stable, affordable workspaces — a problem that’s been growing for decades and is now reaching a critical point, said Paul Parkhill, executive director of Spaceworks, a nonprofit spearheaded in 2011 by the Department of Cultural Affairs to transform underused public and private building spaces into permanent artist workspaces.
“We get a lot of stories about people moving from studio to studio every year or two,” he said, citing once-affordable neighborhoods like Brooklyn’s Williamsburg and Red Hook as now out of reach.