The Festival Access Fund was created to provide direct support to new citywide arts/cultural festivals and to local arts/cultural festivals partnering with organizations in Lower Manhattan to bring public festival events to the area. Grants are given specifically to support exhibitions, performances and other public events presented or co-presented by established cultural organizations in the area south of Canal Street or in Chinatown, as part of the festival program. Through this program, LMCC seeks to enable small and mid-sized groups in Lower Manhattan to benefit from the more intensive marketing and production support available from cultural festivals, and to draw new festivals and audiences downtown.
This program accepts applications by invitation only.
YEAR 1
Community Works
$50,000
Community Works, a nonprofit arts and educational organization, collaborated with six downtown cultural organizations to implement the harlem is…Downtown festival in Lower Manhattan: the South Street Seaport Museum, Trinity Church, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University, Abrons Arts Center, and St. Augustine’s Church.
PEN American Center
$35,000
PEN American Center, an association of writers working to advance literature, defend freedom of expression, and foster international literary fellowship, brought literary panels and events to downtown cultural organizations as part of their annual PEN World Voices: the New York Festival of International Literature.
YEAR 2
Celebrate Mexico Now
$20,000
Celebrate Mexico Now, a festival of contemporary Mexican art, partnered with the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Dance New Amsterdam, St. John’s University, and Art in General.
HERE Arts Center
$10,000
HERE Arts Center, a producer of multidisciplinary work, presented HERE’s 17th Annual The American Living Room festival at 3LD Art and Technology Center.
PEN American Center
$16,000
PEN American Center, an association of writers working to advance literature, defend freedom of expression, and foster international literary fellowship, brought their Young People’s Literature Day to the Downtown Community Television Center as part of their annual PEN World Voices: The New York Festival of International Literature.
