NEWBURGH – Mayor Torrance Harvey would like to reinstitute the one percent for art program in Newburgh that was short-lived over a decade ago.

The program would be aimed at establishing a fund to foster the arts in the city, he said. “Any projects over $250,000, from my understanding of the legislation, one percent would be dedicated for art and culture and of that one percent, 70 percent would be site-based art and culture and that development project and 30 percent would go into a savings fund to add up to, hopefully, eventually creating more funding for art and culture in Newburgh,” he said.

In the meantime, the city’s Arts & Cultural Commission has been awarded a $10,000 Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support the Newburgh Arts & Cultural Study. That project will conduct the city’s first study to inventory and assess the arts and cultural landscape.

Together with the recently re-launched Arts & Cultural Commission, the project will collect a benchmark of qualitative and quantitative data to reveal how arts and culture play a crucial role in our local economy and social wellbeing.