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Business & The Arts-Part 4
A special BNH community forum examines areas of convergence and conflict between New Haven's cultural and corporate communities
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Business New Haven
6/9/2003
By: BNH
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BNH: How effective is New Haven in selling the arts to people and groups from outside the city?
Karolyn Kirchgesler, executive director, Greater New Haven Convention and Visitors Bureau: The arts are primarily what we have to sell. When we market to leisure travelers, the arts is really something we have in the area and we have an unbelievable amount of arts for the size of the city.
Cultural travelers tend to spend and travel more, stay longer and are more likely to stay in a hotel or motel [than those traveling for other purposes]. As an economic development corporation, we go after those types of groups we will get the biggest impact from.
The Convention & Visitors Bureau has gone after amateur sporting events because one of the other things we do is go after group business. Because we don't have a lot of convention and meeting facilities, but do have a lot of sporting venues, we are able to bring in these big events.
It isn't an either-or situation with arts or sports. But when working with the leisure traveler, the arts is definitely what we have to sell in this region.
BNH: I'd like to ask Michael Schaffer [of Schaffer Hotel Properties, which is developing a $15 million apartment project at the site of the former Strawberries store at Church and Chapel streets]: Where did the confidence to do a major apartment development in downtown New Haven come from, and what impact do you think the city's cultural offerings have on the your business?
Schaffer: It's interesting to see what has happened in downtown New Haven in the last ten years. Back in the early 1990s we saw a good number of vacancies along Chapel Street. We own a number of buildings in New Haven and we saw the vacancies rise in the apartment buildings.
Over the last five years there have been a number of things that have gone extremely well downtown that bode well for the future of the city.
We have a seen a dramatic rise in the number of people who want to live downtown. Ten years ago there was probably about a 15-percent vacancy factor in apartments downtown; it is now below three percent.
We're building a major project on the Green, and there are a number of others on the drawing boards right now. With each project there has been amazing absorption of the units - for a variety of reasons. People, primarily young professionals, want to live in a place that has a diversity of activities, a broad base of cultural and arts organizations, a place where you can go, eat and meet other people that have the same interests. [New Haven] is unique.
We are on the verge of some unusual events and occurrences in the city. I believe that the next ten years are going to be far brighter than the last ten years, [and] it is because we have a great diversity of arts and cultural events and amateur sport events.
BNH: Tony Falcone [artist and principal of the Falcone Art Studio in Prospect], from an artist's perspective, what are your views of the arts and New Haven?
Falcone: I have taught myself a lot, especially how to be an artist. I decided if I was going to be an artist, I wanted to be a successful one. At first I thought if you had a lot of money because you sold a lot [of artwork], that meant you were successful. I realized that really is not what it is about.
To me, success is being happy. I'm celebrating my 29th anniversary of being a self-taught artist, and that is really making me happy. So I feel real success.
I studied the artists that I admired and how they made it. I then studied what cities were cities that made it, and that taught me a lot.
When I put the two together, I realized that it was really quite simple to be happy with what you do. You have to be around people that are happy with what they do.
New Haven is a great city and is going to have an amazing future if it models itself after all the great cities that had an arts foundation. They did well not only because they had great artists, but also because their state of mind was that it was an arts place.
Barbara Lamb, director of cultural affairs and special projects, city of New Haven: I'm very encouraged by the fact that when we see the budget cuts happening [elsewhere], the budgets here are not being wiped out. I've been told about what's going on in New Jersey, how not only are they wiping out entire budgets of organizations, the organizations are totally going away.
I'm encouraged by the fact that we're pulling ourselves up and how arts organizations are finding ways to create collaborations think that the future is looking very promising.
Bill Burns, independent motion-picture producer, Hamden: [New Haven] is on the brink of an enormous new era. When Julia [Roberts] came in here last May and Yale said yes to shooting a major film here, you were almost in the goal zone.
Why? You have a virgin city visually. We're in a visual business now. Storytelling is taking somewhat of a back seat to the creation of stunning visuals onscreen.
Here, you have architecture that has been seen by no one in the world. This town has been void of filmmaking for the last 50 years.
The Arts Council and chambers of commerce need to put together a film division or film office together.
Mary Miller: Scotland saw Ireland being used as a location for [films] like Braveheart, which was obviously about Scotland. Scottish Screen was formed and has an extremely good executive director, has a number of dynamic people that they pulled in to work for it and it caused a revolution to the economy of the arts in Scotland.
I would absolutely back up what [Bill Burns] says. I've seen what happens in a small country with 5.5 million inhabitants just because of moving on an opportunity like this. I would urge everybody here to listen to what has been said.
Barbara Lamb: [In response to Bill Burns], the [city's] Office of Cultural Affairs actually acts on a de-facto basis as the film office for the city. We've been working with the state, which has been very actively pursuing and bringing films to Connecticut. They were the ones who were instrumental in working with Yale to bring the Julia Roberts film here.
While it is very exciting that 18 hours of shooting went on here in the city, it would be surprising if you recognize New Haven [in the finished film] and if it appears in the movie for more than five minutes in total. I was inside Sterling Memorial Library during the shooting and they said it would probably last all of about 45 seconds.
This is something we've been tracking for a long time and we probably do need to put together at least a film committee to pave the way for films that are interested. We have interest from another Hollywood producer for a film they want to shoot here and a number of other things in the pipeline.
Peter Newman, architect, Herbert S. Newman & Partners, New Haven: We're a local and regional firm. People had spoken earlier about the recognition of architecture as a true art. We like to believe it is the mother of all arts. We had been short-listed for the Regional Water Authority project in Hamden, across from the Eli Whitney Museum. We lost it to an international firm, Steven Holl [Architects], out of New York.
It's these types of commissions and the recognition and respect and breadth and invitations to international people and caliber of talent, bringing that type of talent into the community, that is one of the things New haven has been known for. And Yale has a lead on that in the architects they've commissioned throughout their history. [Also], institutions like the Regional Water Authority having the foresight to get an international star to design the facility on Whitney Avenue. It really contributes to the environment as a whole and contributes to what Tony called a happy city - consciously or unconsciously.
Pat Sweet: It's really embarrassing, because I got up and talked about giving away water when we're building a $60 million water treatment plant with a world class architect. I wanted to follow up because we used a unique approach and I think everyone should keep after corporations when they're building, because when they do there is an opportunity to be creative and to think about the fabric of this community.
There is a reason [the RWA chose a New York architect] when we were challenged to re-build a treatment plant. We decided it was our responsibility to work with the neighborhood that we were going to impact so greatly. The fabric of this community is creative, and there were seven architects who lived within seven blocks of that treatment plant that served on the design committee. They interviewed ten firms from New Haven, Massachusetts and New York.
It was very hard to choose because we have some fantastic architect firms. All those architects were willing to give their time to the Water Company. I am grateful to them and I am grateful to [RWA President] John Crawford, who convinced the board we were going to spend more for a treatment plant than a box with a pretty tree in front of it.
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