Build a fairer, more creative New York

As Zohran Mamdani prepares to take the reins of City Hall, no promise rings louder than his analysis of how affordability threatens to undermine the vitality that has defined New York throughout its history, especially for the young people who continue to renew it in its unprecedented creative sector. The crisis is not only economic, but also spiritual.

New York is not just a skyline or a grid of streets: it is a shared stage where artists, teachers, mental health counselors, designers, nonprofit leaders, and youth mentors all contribute to the civic life of the five boroughs.

But today, too many of these contributors are excluded from the very city they support. According to a 2023 analysis by the Center for an Urban Future and the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, nearly 60% of small and medium-sized urban arts organizations operate with less than three months of cash reserves, and 43% face potential displacement due to rising real estate costs. Since 2020, more than 200 cultural spaces have closed permanently.

The Comptroller’s 2024 report, “Spotlight on New York City’s Creative Economy,” reveals that the creative industries provide 234,000 jobs, or 6 percent of all jobs in the city, and 8 percent of wages and salaries, which does not include ancillary services and jobs that serve the industry.

But when artists lose their studios, nonprofits can’t afford stable leases, and community groups are forced to operate in makeshift corners, the city loses its ability to provide the public good at every level — from education and workforce training to health, cultural equity, and neighborhood belonging.

What is needed now is not nostalgia, but a new model that responds to this moment of economic contraction and civic uncertainty with imagination – and common purpose.

That’s what the resurrection of PS 64 on the Lower East Side seeks to offer. Nothing like this exists in New York.

The civic and cultural project currently taking shape within the long-vacant PS 64 will bring together mission-driven organizations, cultural workers, educators, health equity groups, and youth-serving programs under one roof to integrate them into a vibrant, self-sustaining ecosystem with shared values ​​and infrastructure.

The idea is to give nonprofits what they need most – a stable, subsidized space – and they will do what they do best: make an impact. Reduce overhead costs. Enable collaboration. Create economic space for creativity and community care. At a time when public budgets are shrinking and federal support is uncertain, this model is not a luxury: it is infrastructure.

In other industries, coworking has changed the way entrepreneurs and startups build their businesses. Innovation hubs have accelerated technological ecosystems. Yet cultural and nonprofit organizations are still operating like they were in 1995, struggling with limited resources and increasing costs.

With more than 100,000 square feet of programmable space, the new center will offer rehearsal and performance rooms, classrooms, wellness spaces, digital media labs, youth programming centers, affordable office space for small nonprofits, and space for New Yorkers to simply gather and be in community with one another.

Imagine a place where a mental health organization runs community care workshops down the hall from a free youth film lab. Where a teaching artist can rent rehearsal space at below-market rates and collaborate with neighbors who once lived worlds apart. Where a city agency can partner with a local nonprofit not just by contract, but by proximity.

It’s also a way to redress a long-standing civic violation. PS 64 was once home to CHARAS/El Bohio, a Puerto Rican-led cultural organization that kept the building alive despite decades of disinvestment before it was removed from community use and left abandoned. The region has lost one of its few public bastions of cultural and civic imagination. Restoring that promise isn’t just good policy. It is an act of justice.

Neighborhoods from the Bronx to Brooklyn face the same problem: rich in ideas, poor in space. The PS 64 model can be replicated throughout the city, but only if the first one succeeds. For funders, this represents an opportunity to support not just individual organizations, but an entire ecosystem that multiplies impact across sectors.

The math is convincing: shared facilities reduce operational costs by 30 to 40%, while proximity creates programming synergies. Long-term stability allows organizations to focus on their mission rather than rent negotiations.

The comptroller’s report says the city “should treat the sector as the economic engine and resource that it is.”

We agree. A rescued and resurrected PS 64 offers just such an opportunity and a replicable model for solidifying what the report calls this “fragile cultural ecosystem” for decades to come.

Francis is the founder of Q Impact Solutions, which is leading efforts to redevelop PS 64 on the Lower East Side.