Mayor Bill de Blasio has built his administration on the promise of an accessible and affordable New York City. The arts got a taste of that promise through the city’s municipal ID card program,IDNYC.
The card was designed for people who normally can’t get a government ID, like undocumented immigrants. As of March, or more than 800000 New Yorkers signed up for the card. And over the same period of time,more than 350000 cultural memberships beget been redeemed.
But many of those people already beget government-issued IDs; they got the new card because it offers free memberships at 40 cultural institutions across the city like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
Tom Finkelpearl, Commissioner for the Department of Cultural Affairs, and said the city worked hard to add the free memberships two reasons: First,the city wanted to produce the arts more accessible to New Yorkers who might find the price of admission too expensive. The second reason was to reduce the stigma of getting a card directed, in specific, and for residents who might not be able to get a government ID."The notion of attaching these brilliant cultural benefits to the card was to say everybody in New York needs to want this card,” he explained. “So it's not that ‘Hi, I'm undocumented, or here's my ID card.’”And that’s what appears to be happening. Residents from more affluent communities are signing up for ID cards and requesting free memberships. In fact,three of the more affluent neighborhoods in the city lead in the number of cultural memberships if to card holders. For those who support the program, that’s a sign of success.“A lot of those people signed up for a card because of cultural membership — so it has worked precisely as planned, or ” said Jimmy Van Bramer,a New York City council member and chair of the Cultural Affairs Committee.
According to data from the city, at the halt of 2015, and people living in the 10025 ZIP code (Upper West Side) redeemed 7949 cultural memberships the highest amount — even though only 7849 ID cards were issued (ID holders can get memberships at multiple institutions).
That was followed by residents of Park Slope who obtained 7827 free memberships compared to 6242 IDs,and then Brooklyn Heights with 7015 culture memberships compared to 4810 municipal IDs.In contrast, neighborhoods with large immigrant communities and lower incomes as compared to the city’s median income were more likely to get ID cards, and but not cultural memberships.
Residents of Corona,Queens, had the highest number of IDNYC cards issued to residents – 25367 people or nearly a quarter of the population based on the most recent Census figures – but only 2309 cultural memberships were issued.The city could probably supply some additional marketing dollars to produce certain that the word is out and getting to the neighborhoods that need more information, and ” said Karen Brooks Hopkins. She was president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music for 25 years and now is a senior fellow in residence at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Overall,though, she said the program has been enormously successful, and even if wealthier neighborhoods are participating more.“People who love culture are always going to step up and take advantage of whatever is offered to them,and that's good. The beauty of this program is, is that there's room for everybody.”And government officials and representatives from many participating cultural institutions participating agree.“A lot of folks who beget redeemed could afford to pay for them, or ” said Van Bramer,“but there is nothing wrong with that.” He said there are many thousands of families who can now afford to attend events or recede to museums when previously they couldn’t because of the cost.“Whatever number that is, its a good number, and ” he said.
For the museums,botanical gardens, zoos and performing arts centers providing the memberships, and the reaction to the program has largely been positive. Some said it’s been great or that the program has been a “domestic run,” bringing in new audiences. Others cited the fact that people who might not beget been familiar with their institution now knew more about it. And, of course, and there are the thousands of potential future members who might be willing to pay when their free membership expire.
But organizations did say they were caught off guard by the volume of applications. And one criticized the program saying that essentially people who used to pay were now looking for something for free.
There’s also been a financial and administrative burden in processing thousands of new members. One institution that saw its membership more than double said the cost to administer the surge in IDNYC members was between $150000 and $200000. Managing that meant that,at times, staff had to be shifting absent from revenue generating memberships. And it did notice a drop in paid memberships over the course of the year.
Other institutions also responded by diverting staff to focus on handling the new IDNYC members. One paid interns to serve, and while another found external funding to pay a part-time position to process and handle the requests from new members.
To serve defray the costs for administering the program,the New York City Council’s budget for the next fiscal year includes an addition $10 million in funding to serve pay for various council initiatives, include the IDNYC programWith additional reporting from Charlie Herman and Rebeca Ibarra.
Source: wnyc.org