Recognizing that the arts provide huge intellectual and social benefits to New York, and also that they more than pay their way, the 1974 Mayor's Committee suggested that city government support of cultural activities should be as strong and efficient as possible. It found room for improvement, both through making changes in the structure of appropriate governmental agencies and by establishing and communicating cultural policies designed to aid all elements of New York's cultural life. The committee also recommended ways in which such governmental measures could enhance support of the arts from private sources.

One of the committee's principal recommendations had to do with a proposed new administrative structure within the city government. It suggested that a new Cultural Affairs Commission be created to help advance the city government's cultural interests and to act as a policy advisory, coordinating, and fact-gathering body. It also proposed the establishment of a Cultural Affairs Department, which would be independent of the old Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs and would assume responsibility for the day to day management of the city government's administrative functions in the cultural field. Finally, it recommended that a Cultural Affairs Foundation be formed to raise private funds for cultural support and to provide technical assistance to community groups.

Most of these recommendations were adopted and implemented, but not all. A new Commission for Cultural Affairs was created. A new and independent Department of Cultural Affairs was established. But the operating relations between the two have not turned out exactly as envisioned, and have tended to shift with mayoral administraitons. Although the proposed foundation was not formed, a comparable and older organization, the privately-constituted Cultural Council Foundation, has continued to operate and to perform some of the functions that were proposed for the Cultural Affairs Foundation. Another private organization, the Cultural Assistance Center, Inc (sponsor of this report) was established to provide some of the technical assistance and other arts promotional functions envisioned for the foundation.

In the five years since 1974 a number of other factors have affected the cultural life of New York City. Most notably, the financial constraints imposed upon New York City by its fiscal crisis has made it difficult, if not impossible, for the city government to respond to the increasing number of arts institutions in need of financial support. The money simply isn't there to meet everyone's needs. Worsening inflation, which in New York ran at a level of 11.3 last year, has continued to afflict the city's cultural organizations. Inflation hits non-profit organizations especially hard, as it is very difficult for them to generate new income to cover rapidly rising costs.

There has been a substantial growth in the public's use of cultural facilities (the four-month Cezanne show at the museum of Modern Art from October 1977 to January 1978 drew 490,000 visitors - more than all admissions to that museum in the entire year in fiscal 1964). However, many cultural organizations have been reluctant to finance such growth through increased user charges, because these sometimes tend to exclude many of the less affluent people whom the facilities are designed in part to serve.

Numerous non-profit service organizations, most of them relatively new, now provide various kinds of assistance to cultural institutions in New York - help with fiscal management, fund-raising, promotion, legal problems, space and equipment rentals, and a host of other needs. But some of these have functions that are comparable or complementary and there may be opportunities for savings through consolidation. Support of the arts groups in New York by the state and federal governments has continued, but has not succeeded in keeping pace with inflation, much less with real levels of need. Moreover, there are problems, some political in nature, that have affected the functioning of the New York State Council on the Arts. Additional forms of support for cultural organizations are being provided through units of the city government outside the Department of Cultural Affairs (often working with funds from the federal government) but coordination among them seems sporadic.

A recent survey for this report of some 22 major cultural institutions in New York City indicates total government support dropping from 19.1 percent of total income in 1974/75 to 14.5 percent in 1978/79, a decrease largely due to a nearly five percent drop in State Council support. Contributions from other sources - corporations, foundations, individuals - increased by over $23 million during this same period and now represent nearly one-third of these institutions' total incomes. The administration of city government has changed since 1974, which has given new appointees opportunities to work with the administrative structure now in place and to test how well that structure has been designed.

The Cultural Assistance Center has conducted the study reported here in order to look again, in the light of all these developments, at some of the questions that faced the Mayor's Committee on Cultural Policy in 1974. The study has been undertaken at the request of several New York-based foundations and of government and corporate officials and leaders in the arts service field. The Center, aided by a special Advisory Committee, has specifically aimed to do the following:

1. Review the recommendations of the Mayor's Committee on Cultural Policy relating to the city government's organization and functioning in the cultural field. Do these recommendations still seem sound, and has their implementation served the city's cultural interests well? Are there suggestions for improvement?
   
   
2. Look at the relations of city, state and federal agencies, cultural and otherwise,  with the city's cultural institutions. Are their support levels adequate under today's circumstances, and are their efforts coordinated and effective?
   
   
3. Review the scope of services of private assistance groups in New York - groups offering technical aid, fund-raising and promotional help, and the like. Is there in fact an overlapping of effort, and can suggestions be made on possible improvements?
   
   
4. Review also the support patterns of corporations and foundations. How significant are these efforts? Can anything be said about ways to make them more beneficial?

CONTENTS
I. Introduction.

II. Summary of findings and major recommendations.

III. New York City Government. 

Department of Cultural Affairs. 
Commission for Cultural Affairs. 
City Planning Commission. 
Art Commission. 
Department of Parks and Recreation. 
Landmarks Preservation Commission. 
Department of General Services.
Office of Economic Development. 
Department for the Aging. 
New York City Youth Board. 
Board of Education. Metropolitan Transportation Authority. 
Other city agencies. 
Borough Presidents offices. 
Borough Arts Councils.

IV. New York State Government.

New York State Council on the Arts;
Other state agencies.
Department of Commerce.
Department of Parks and Recreation.

V. Federal Government.

National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities.
Institute of Museum Services.
Other Federal Agencies.
Housing and Urban Development.
Department of Interior.
Department of Labor.
General Services Administration.
Department of Commerce.
Federal Legislation.

VI. Corporation and Foundation support.

VII. Arts service organizations.

Footnotes.
Bibliography.

Recognizing that the arts provide huge intellectual and social benefits to New York, and also that they more than pay their way, the 1974 Mayor's Committee suggested that city government support of cultural activities should be as strong and efficient as possible. It found room for improvement, both through making changes in the structure of appropriate governmental agencies and by establishing and communicating cultural policies designed to aid all elements of New York's cultural life. The committee also recommended ways in which such governmental measures could enhance support of the arts from private sources.