Is Mayor DiBlasio Good For The Arts?
Mayor Bill de Blasio‘s predecessor, billionaire media impresario Michael Bloomberg, favored splashy projects that bolstered tourism and encouraged commercial real-estate development. According to a recent assessment, “De Blasio appears less focused on the arts’ bottom line, and more focused on arts education. “We don’t see the arts and culture sector solely through the prism of economics,†he said at a press conference. “It plays a much bigger role than just being a driver of employment or something that attracts tourist dollars,†says Theodore Wiprud, the co-chair of the New York City Arts Education Roundtable. During his campaign, de Blasio promised to restore arts education to every city school within four years. A new after-school program for middle-school students includes arts instruction. But “arts education has become so impoverished that it is going to take targeted budgetary support to remediate the poverty in the field,†says Theodore Wiprud, the co-chair of the New York City Arts Education Roundtable. “I haven’t heard anything encouraging about that.â€
