The Canadian Press, November 13, 2008, Thursday

The Canadian Press

November 13, 2008, Thursday

The Canadian Press

Public art is big money for NYC, but economic impact questioned

NEW YORK — The city has hosted two grand public art installations in the last three years: the saffron fabric "Gates" exhibit in Central Park in 2005 and the recent "Waterfalls" show near the shorelines of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

In both cases, officials said the projects generated staggering amounts of money for New York. They said that "The Gates" brought in a whopping US$254 million and four million visitors, and "The Waterfalls" generated $69 million and attracted an estimated 1.4 million visitors.

Impressive numbers - especially in tough economic times.

But how does the city come up with such detailed attendance and economic impact numbers for these privately funded projects that are free to the public? And how does it determine the projects' spillover benefits to hotels, restaurants, businesses and other cultural institutions?

It's a complex methodology that includes survey responses, ridership data from tour boats and mass transit, visitor head counts, hotel and restaurant bookings, retail and souvenir sales, and attendance rates at other cultural institutions. Websites also are analyzed to determine how many people are posting blog items and photos about the exhibits.

But some experts have questioned the accuracy of those numbers, saying that figures such as a quarter-million dollars in economic impact for "The Gates" seems a little extreme.

"The thing about 'The Gates' and 'The Waterfalls' is that it's in the open air so it's difficult to assess how big the crowd is," said Cathy Lanier, a researcher at the Industrial and Labor Relations School at Cornell University.

"I know that the work on 'The Gates' was criticized by others. They just didn't believe that the numbers were that high," said Lanier, who has done three large-scale studies on the economic impact of art institutions for the Port Authority.

She did not review the Economic Development Corp.'s 26-page report on the projects' affect on the local economy, but said the methodology was basically sound, based on a commonly used impact model.

Public art has become big business in New York in recent years. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has called public art "a signature of New York City" that inspires New Yorkers, helps bring in visitors, swells its coffers and burnishes the city's image as a world cultural destination.

The Economic Development Corp. said that 'The Waterfalls,' by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, "demonstrated once again how public art makes New York one of the world's great places to live, work and visit."

After the 16-week show closed Oct. 13, Bloomberg said it had exceeded the city's expectations by $14 million.

"We've always understood that we have to encourage big, bold projects that set our city apart, and this will be increasingly important while areas of our economy are struggling from the turmoil on Wall Street," he said.

The four scaffoldlike waterfalls, about 27 metres to 36 metres high, were visible along the shores of Manhattan and Brooklyn and Governor's Island. They were illuminated after sunset.

The project's estimated $69 million included $15.5 million raised by the nonprofit Public Art Fund - which commissioned the project - to construct, operate and dismantle the falls.

Another $26.3 million came from "incremental visitor spending and the indirect economic impact of these expenditures," the EDC report said.

Visitor surveys at seven vantage locations found that 23 per cent, or 320,000 people, who visited 'The Waterfalls' were making their first foray to the Brooklyn or Lower Manhattan waterfronts. Of the 1.4 million visitors, some 79,000 people were out-of-town tourists who made the trip specifically to see the falls.

Over the past six years, the city has spent large sums to redevelop its once neglected waterfront, and the exhibit was a high-profile way to showcase it and the surrounding neighbourhoods as a destination.

The EDC also relied on Department of Transportation data, which estimated hundreds of thousands of "incidental sightings" of 'The Waterfalls' by people who travelled daily by ferry, car, bicycle and subway on the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges and surrounding highways.

Ferry and boat tour operations created special 'Waterfalls' cruises that provided some of the most exact numbers. For example, the Circle Line Downtown tours reported a total of 213,000 passengers on special daily 'Waterfalls' cruise during the exhibition's run.

Economic impact information also was gleaned from various other events created around 'The Waterfalls.' Hotels offered special overnight 'Waterfalls' packages and vouchers, restaurants catered 'Waterfalls'-themed dinners, walking tours combined culinary sites with 'Waterfalls' views, and schools organized special 'Waterfalls' outings.

Through visitor interviews and surveys, the city learned that 95 per cent of all out-of-towners to 'The Waterfalls' saw at least one other show, museum or cultural attraction during their stay. It also surmised that people from at least 55 countries saw 'The Waterfalls.'

Indirect measures of the installation's success came from websites such as Flickr.com, which posted 6,000 'Waterfalls' photographs. There were also 1,200 blog postings and more than 200 YouTube videos of the falls.

Similar criteria were used for the 'Gates' exhibition, which festooned 37 kilometres of Central Park pathways with more than 7,500 metal gates draped in orange fabric for two weeks in February 2005.

Rickshaw and horse buggy rides and concession stands in the park provided some of the most exact numbers. These tourist attractions - normally suspended in the winter for lack of business - were reinvigorated for the exhibition, and reported booming business. Museums and restaurants in and around the park also reported a huge increase in patrons.

'Gates' souvenirs alone accounted for approximately $4 million. Artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who financed the entire project themselves, presented the city with a $3 million donation. They also hired 700 New Yorkers to install and tear down the exhibit.

Public art in New York City is not a new phenomenon.

The city has had a partnership with the Public Art Fund over the past 30 years that has resulted in many popular installations. Some were smaller,such as "Sky Mirror," a stainless steel concave sculpture by award-winning artist Anish Kapoor that was planted in tourist-saturated Rockefeller Center for nine days in 2006.

In 2000, a whimsical installation called "Cow Parade" saw some 500 life-size fibreglass cows, each decorated by a different artist, strewn throughout the city. They were later auctioned to raise money for local charities.

And as one public art project closes, another seems to open elsewhere.

In late October, a luminous, futuristic-looking art pavilion by London architect Zaha Hadid opened in Central Park. Chanel, which commissioned the Mobile Art project to resemble the designer's classic quilted, chain-handle purse, paid the city a $400,000 "use fee" and pledged a donation in the seven figures to the Central Park Conservancy.

On the Net:
http://www.publicartfund.org