Culture For All

Please join us in sending Mayor Adams a clear and important message—budget cuts to culture hurt New Yorkers and our communities!

Send a letter to the Mayor demanding restoration of the budget cuts and full funding for arts and culture in the City’s budget.

Funding for cultural organizations has remained stagnant since 2009. Our sector is in trouble. The City must reverse all cuts imposed on the Department of Cultural Affairs and restore $53 million in the City budget for cultural institutions and programs to repair these critical organizations and enable them to do their essential and magical work.

New York is New York because of our thriving and diverse cultural sector: museums, theaters, gardens, zoos, dance companies, performing arts venues, arts education programs, and so much more. Culture is what nurtures and sustains us, and, importantly, it brings tourism, jobs, and tax revenue to our city.

Culture delivers over $110 billion dollars into New York City’s economy. Thousands of jobs and small businesses depend on the arts and culture sector. Cuts to culture hurt everyone from students, to seniors, to workers and families and lead to job cuts, program cancellations, closures, and reduced hours.

Join our fight to protect New York’s status as the #1 city in the world by saving arts and culture from the budget ax.

Thank you for adding your voice to preserve Culture for All! #NoCutsToCulture

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To: Mayor Eric Adams Cc: Deputy Mayor Maria Torres Springer, Commissioner of Cultural Affairs Laurie Cumbo, Speaker Adrienne Adams, Finance Chair Justin Brannan, Chair of Cultural Affairs Carlina Rivera

Subject: Restore Budget Cuts to Preserve Culture For All!

Dear Mr. Mayor:

I urge you to fully fund arts and culture in the City’s Budget and reverse all of the culture cuts.

Thank you for listening to the arts, culture, tourism, and labor community and for reversing some of the hurtful budget cuts imposed earlier this year to the City’s public cultural institutions and programs. This is appreciated but not nearly enough. Full restoration—$53 million—is needed to repair the damage of previous cuts and to invest in this vital sector right now.

The budget cuts to museums, zoos, gardens, dance companies, theaters, and so many beloved organizations never made any sense. Culture is the backbone of New York, it drives the economy and supports good paying union jobs. It brings people together, keeps our communities healthy and helps nurture dreams. The creative economy in NYC represents a workforce of over 300,000 individuals and over 4,000 entities, located in every neighborhood in every borough, and whose economic activity generates over $110 billion annually—making New York City the cultural capital of the world.

Mr. Mayor, our city’s recovery is significant but fragile—and it cannot withstand uncertainty and continued cuts to culture. Thousands of workers could lose their livelihoods and an even greater number of New Yorkers will be robbed of the arts and cultural programming that makes our great city such an attractive place to live and to visit. Now is the time to reverse this year’s cuts, and for Fiscal 2025, to enable the cultural field to do what it does best—to serve the people of New York, and to help the City of New York.

With great appreciation,

[your name]

[your message]