$1 Billion Lost, Jobs Cut By Half: NYC's Arts Industry Amid COVID

LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — At the onset of the pandemic, Art Strong NYC, an art education studio in Long Island City, had to switch from in-person classes to virtual and distanced programming — a decision that came with some new opportunities, but also a major income loss.

“We made the decision to switch to doing some art kits, where people could make art at home,” Ashely Cavadas, who co-founded Art Strong with Hannah Lokken, told the Queens Eagle. "For us, it was something that we thought we would do maybe five years down the line. In a way, it was exciting that we could try it out way earlier than expected," she said.

Although the art kits enabled the studio to expand its reach nationally, Cavadas and Lokken still lost about $75K in expected income — a loss that's part of a nearly $1 billion income decline among the city's art organizations, according to a new study by the Center for an Urban Future (CUF).

The report, which draws from a survey of 643 community-based arts organizations, shows that arts organizations in the city suffered devastating financial losses last year — a cumulative income decline of 36 percent in 2020 compared to the year before the pandemic.

This income decline was paralleled by budget cuts and an equally devastating wage decline. Now, only there are half as many art industry jobs in New York City compared to what existed before the pandemic, according to the report.

While job losses were citywide, arts organizations in Queens suffered the highest rates of employment impacts throughout the five boroughs. CUF found that nearly half of arts organizations in Queens froze salaries amid the pandemic.

The study also shows that small arts organizations, especially those led by Black, Indigenous and other people of color and those located in lower-resourced zip codes, were among the hardest hit.

And often, those disparities were compounded, since 72 percent of arts organizations located in lower-income zip codes reported being BIPOC-led, compared to 33 percent of organizations outside of those areas, according to CUF.

However, since last year, organizations across the board are more optimistic about their futures: Only 5 percent of surveyed arts-organizations said they were not confident in their survival, compared to the 11 percent which weren't confident last year.

CUF reported that with more organizations looking towards their future, most still say they need customers and cash to secure their success — the latter which the City Council is focused on in its record-high $99 billion budget, which includes many arts-related allocations.

In Long Island City specifically, City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer celebrated the budget's allocations to arts organizations, which amounted to millions of dollars in Long Island City alone.

While Van Bramer voted against the budget because of its $200 million allocation to the NYPD, he still supports how it funds the arts.

"Supporting artists and programs that result in better educational outcomes keeps young people from involvement in the justice system to begin with," he said.

See the entire CUF study here.