From left, Kathleen Reckling, CEO of ArtsWestchester, talked with Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the New York state Senate’s president pro tempore and majority leader, before the announcement of the $5 million state grant to ArtsWestchester for capital improvements to its building. In the foreground is Julie Rosenberg’s “Born on the Fourth of July,” part of ArtsWestchester’s “Art in a Season of Revolution” show (through Aug. 2). Photographs by Georgette Gouveia.
When the federal government recently terminated $2 million in grants to ArtsWestchester, the largest private arts council in New York state, the effect was devastating — a loss of $8 million in economic impact, ArtsWestchester CEO Kathleen Reckling said at a Thursday, July 23, press event at its White Plains headquarters.
“It’s hard enough for arts organizations to keep the lights on,” she recalled. “It felt like someone had flipped a switch.”
Now civic leaders in the state and Westchester County have ensured those lights will not only stay on but continue to shine on cultural programming. Led by Andrea Stewart-Cousins, president pro tempore and majority leader of the New York state Senate, many of those leaders were on hand Thursday to present ArtsWestchester with a check for $5 million to modernize its historic 1929 building and thus enhance its offerings as a granting and presenting organization.
The funding, which is the largest single state investment in the organization’s 61-year history, will help ArtsWestchester make its nine-story building at 31 Mamaroneck Ave. — once the Peoples National Bank & Trust Co., White Plains’ first skyscraper — fully handicapped accessible. Indeed, state Sen. Shelley Mayer said that the lack of complete accessibility for the disabled was what prevented her from establishing an office in the building as government officials are prohibited from having a presence in a space that is not wholly handicapped accessible.
As it is, the building is home to the studios of 35 artists and small businesses as well as sold-out weekly events in its two-story galleries, Reckling said, adding that the arts “are not a luxury and not about pretty pictures.”
Among the handouts at the July 23 event was “A Legacy of Impact” sheet noting that ArtsWestchester distributes approximately $1.7 million annually in grants to organizations across Westchester and Rockland counties, strengthening a creative economic engine that generates $182 million for Westchester while enriching the region as well. Other key numbers include more than 2,000 artists showcased, $45 million in lifetime grants and one million people and 160 organizations served.
“Rana Amirtahmasebi/Continuum Terra” in ArtsWestchester’s The Janet Langsam Vault Project gallery.
The announcement was a moment for ArtsWestchester and government officials to unite the past, present and future of the arts while celebrating the private-public partnership that has sustained them in the county. Stewart-Cousins, who worked with Gov. Kathy Hochl and Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie on the grant, recalled learning about the arts’ economic impact on communities, when she was a member of the Westchester County Board of Legislators, from Janet T. Langsam, now CEO emerita of ArtsWestchester, for whom the organization’s vault gallery is named. (In her remarks, Sen. Mayer referred to Langsam’s arts advocacy as “lovingly relentless.”)
Assemblywoman Amy Paulin — who spoke of the beneficial effects that ballet has had on her life, enabling her to take a break from concentrating on legislative bills to focus on pliés — recalled Langsam’s “willingness to put her face in front of every legislator” to secure arts funding. Reckling, she said, is “a little more gentle,” if no less tenacious.
Paulin, Stewart-Cousins and Mayer were just some members of the Westchester Assembly and Senate Delegation who worked to secure the $5 million capital improvement grant. Others included Assembly J. Gary Pretlow, chair of the Assembly Ways & Means Committeem and Assemblyman Chris Burdick, who appeared via video. Additional support came from Sen. Jamaal T. Bailey, Sen. Pete Harckham, Sen. Nathalia Fernandez, Assemblyman Steve Otis, Assemblyman Nader Sayegh, Assemblywoman Dana Levenberg, Assemblywoman MaryJane Shimsky and Assemblywoman Matt Slater.
Shimsky and Slater were also present to hear Langsam talk about the need for healing in our nation and the arts’ ability to deliver it.
Buttressing this, Reckling remembered that two years after ArtsWestchester purchased the former Peoples Bank from Chase Manhattan Bank in 1998 for $1.2 million, Chase forgave the mortgage in an exchange for a promise that ArtsWestchester would serve the community.
It’s a promise, Reckling said, that with the help of the $5 million grant ArtsWestchester will continue to keep.