Tag Archives: Dance

Let’s Turn this Old Barn into a Theater! (Part III of III)

Posted on by

Big Car in Indianapolis, IN is a former auto service center.

Dear Reader, About a year ago the Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts (NOCD) working group asked your Man About Town to write a nice, juicy case study about what happens when cultural organizations buy non-cultural facilities and fix them up.  This three part series details my findings, although it’s well worth checking out the original report to see case studies from nearly a dozen cultural organizations across the country.  You can also read Part I and Part II of this series to learn more about the unique opportunities and challenges of adaptive reuse. Continue reading →

Let’s Turn this Old Barn into a Theater! (Part II of III)

Posted on by

Grange halls make badass theater spaces.

Dear Reader, About a year ago the Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts (NOCD) working group asked your Man About Town to write a nice, juicy case study about what happens when cultural organizations buy non-cultural facilities and fix them up.  This three part series details my findings, although it’s well worth checking out the original report to see case studies from nearly a dozen cultural organizations across the country.  Check out Part I of this series to learn more about the unique opportunities and challenges of adaptive reuse. Continue reading →

The Great Struggle for Cheap Meat

Posted on by

The Great Struggle for Cheap Meat (Downtown Art) – Photo R Gilliam

Just about 110 years ago, the price of kosher meat pretty much doubled overnight.  If you were a Jewish homemaker who had to make every penny count in order to keep your family fed, this wasn’t just an inconvenience:  it was a serious threat to your economic stability.  What’s more, it smacked of racketeering by wholesalers who had a captive market of consumers for kosher foods, and recalled anti-Jewish oppression levied through taxes on Kosher foods in other countries.

Jewish women fought back.  They organized a massive boycott of butchers and meat wholesalers that not only succeeded in bringing the prices back down, but became a seminal act of defiance in community organizing and paved the way for major rent and labor strikes to come (including the 1907 Rent Strike and the Uprising of the 20,000).

We’ve made it into a rock musical.  And it opens tomorrow, so buy your tickets here.    Continue reading →

The Art$ – Part III (Some Easy Fixes)

Posted on by

Art – it makes life more funner.

In my earlier posts on this subject, dear reader, I first endeavored to put a finer point on the more than thousand-fold revenue variation between the largest cultural organizations in NYC, and the median cultural organization. Holy stromboli you say? Yes! While the very largest nonprofit culturals have revenues of more than $300 million annually, more than half the groups in my most recent study had revenues of less than $250 thousand. What’s more, the top five very largest organizations received nearly half of all city funding (their share being a whopping $133 million).
Continue reading →