The Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District


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Downtown Brooklyn is home to some of the most impressive arts and cultural institutions in New York City, and the Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District is at the heart of it. The District is also a key component of the City’s commitment to the renaissance and redevelopment of Downtown Brooklyn. Our first home will be at 262 Ashland Place, between Fulton Street and Lafayette Avenue. We will be just steps away from BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House and around the corner from the Mark Morris Dance Center. We couldn’t be more excited about being a part of this burgeoning Cultural District.

The District will include museums, dance centers, galleries, music venues, theatres, artists’ studios, media arts organizations, restaurants, public plazas and mixed-income housing. Many such organizations are already in place or are in the works. (See Our Future Neighbors) When we were invited to become a part of the District, we knew that it would be a smart move to join in. Becoming part of an integrated cultural district with an established anchor like BAM (the Brooklyn Academy of Music) and with significant investment from the City could only be a winning proposition.

Because the arts groups that make up the District are so numerous and diverse, it will be able to attract a broader, larger audience than we could on our own. It is being developed and marketed as a destination much like Lincoln Center. There will be District-wide arts in education programming for the community. On top of that, there is what is going on in the rest of Downtown Brooklyn – in addition to improved infrastructure, millions of square feet of new residential and office projects will be built over the course of the next five years, providing a substantial base of new audience members for arts and cultural institutions, and they will flock to the Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District.

The planning for the District is being spearheaded by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, a non-profit public-private partnership, the mission of which is to foster growth in Downtown Brooklyn through a variety of development initiatives. You can learn more about the DBP and their plans for Downtown Brooklyn at www.dbpartnership.org.