Guest Post: How Live Music & Multicultural Arts Helped New York Bounce Back

Jack Vartoogian / Getty Images – SummerStage Reborn
DeJohnette-Coltrane-Garrison Trio performs at Central Park SummerStage on June 15, 2019. Prior to this summer, the venue underwent extensive improvements.

To a whole generation of New York residents and tourists, Central Park is a global symbol of cultural diversity and best-in-class entertainment whose iconic landscape has set the stage for park design across America.

But the park had to undergo its own transformation away from its era-defining period of grit, grime and crime. In 1990 alone, according to NYPD data, there were 368 serious crimes reported in Central Park. Across a seven-year period, several of the pervasive crimes became best known by their tabloid nicknames (the Preppie Killer, the Zodiac Killer, the now-exonerated “Central Park Five”) and contributed to a general sense of unease that kept many people from engaging in city life. 

Bill Tompkins / Getty Images – Central Cooling
A Central Park SummerStage crowd is watered down on July 15, 1997.

It’s only when I reflect back at this time period that the collective criminality seems shocking. Perceived danger was the default setting of New York City life back then, now chronicled in Scorsese films and Netflix miniseries. 

Of course, there are many things that contribute to an improved city, but the secret ingredient might just be the only-in-New York bragging rights that lure expats and keep residents in the city, rather than retreating from it. And offering free, smart, diverse, creative performances is part of that intoxicating milieu. New Yorkers both veteran and neophyte want to partake in the mix of intellectual curiosity, debate, dance and world music. Performing arts can measurably contribute to the betterment, improvement and investment in our cities.

It was the pursuit of elements that propelled me to found the SummerStage concert series in 1986 as a contemporary, eclectic response to more classical mainstays like Shakespeare In The Park or The Met Opera on the Great Lawn. SummerStage would be a platform to provide free access to New York’s unparalleled cultural kaleidoscope, from pop to folk to zydeco to spoken word to modern dance. We set out to showcase capital-A Arts programs that uplifted audiences, tapped into a zeitgeisty urgency and defied expectations of the cover bands and community theater that had previously defined most municipal programming.

Jack Vartoogian / Getty Images – Cash Country
Johnny Cash performs with The Highwaymen at Central Park SummerStage on May 23, 1993.

Sure, the gritty surroundings presented a few challenges — we would start SummerStage shows at 3 p.m. to ensure attendees could safely engage with their favorite acts. But fans did not give up on Central Park. Artists did not give up on Central Park. SummerStage embraced artists and their fans from all walks of life. SummerStage encouraged citizens to enjoy the park. To sing and dance and listen in the park. To make friends with fellow fans. To scream along with Sonic Youth. To march with Sun Ra. To hear the poetry of Amiri Baraka, Ntozake Shange, Lou Reed and Patti Smith. To dance with Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane. To connect with the complex, avant-garde musicality of John Cage. To two-step with Boozoo Chavis and tango with Astor Piazzolla. To slow dance with Lucinda Williams and Rosanne Cash. 

As SummerStage and other culturally diverse arts programs expanded throughout the city, Central Park and New York grew quite different from how they were 30 years ago – and all the better for it. It’s greener, cleaner, safer, and much more fun. And the Park’s neighbors, like denizens of other cities rich in arts and culture, have reaped the benefits. According to a 2017 study by the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Policy & Social Practice, neighborhoods with access to rich arts and culture programs can have a positive effect on health, safety and even rates of obesity.

As we prepare to celebrate SummerStage’s rich history at the City Parks Foundation’s 30th anniversary gala on Sept. 26 as well as the success of SummerStage’s first season following its $5.5 million renovation, we are in turn celebrating the fans and artists who made the place that is better than when we first found it.

The social progressiveness of New York has improved by embracing its diverse offerings of music, dance and spoken word, which in turn allows for tolerance, respect, and a deep curiosity from its communities. Social progressiveness acts as a governor: a diverse concert series can foster a sense of cultural sensitivity that makes one less fearful of “otherness” and actually allows us to embrace our differences. It shows a small window into a world we didn’t know with new instruments, sounds, and cross-pollination, and note the close similarities between seemingly disparate music like Appalachian bluegrass and West Ireland reels.

Matthew Eisman / WireImage – SummerStage Surroundings
Young The Giant’s Sameer Gadhia performs at Central Park SummerStage on July 16, 2012.

By offering a slice of another culture, public arts programs aren’t just enriching their cities but quenching a thirst for adventure by offering a new perspective on something we’ve seen for years. It can provide a living and breathing mash-up. As our nation faces a border crisis, cultural programming gives us access to a borderless mindset that makes our communities healthier, safer and more empathetic. 

Central Park’s transformation can perhaps best be summed up by E.B. White, whose own love for the neighborhood has been memorably chronicled in Stuart Little and many other classics. “Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness,” he writes in Here Is New York, “natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.” The most tangible feeling I can feel across those hundreds of SummerStage shows is that passion, the sensation of connecting to a new cultural experience.

Joe Killian is an Emmy-winning producer, brand partnerships consultant and founder of entertainment agency Killian & Company. He founded SummerStage in late 1985, where he booked and produced all shows as executive producer until 1993. He currently serves as an advisor on the Arts Committee SummerStage/City Parks Foundation, which will celebrate its 30th anniversary on Sept. 26 with a gala honoring Paradigm’s Marty Diamond.