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The Arts Community Of St. George -- Hot and Homegrown


The once-scruffy neighborhood of St. George, just opposite the ferry terminal on Staten Island’s north shore, has been experiencing an economic and cultural revival. But while places like Fort Greene in Brooklyn have broad, public-private initiatives pegged to the arts, cultural growth has occurred organically in St. George, without extensive involvement from an economic development corporation or public agency. Local artists and businesses have formed mutually beneficial ties, and residents have become consumers of art.

Economic development of any stripe in St. George is still in the earliest stages. But many are hoping that, when the new St. George Ferry Terminal opens, scheduled for 2005, the neighborhood will become the city’s next cultural destination.

From Stately To Downtrodden To Funky

In the Victorian era, St. George was an elegant suburb, designed to lure residents away from the smoke and clatter of Manhattan. Large, stately homes were built with towers and balconies to take advantage of the hilly landscape and harbor views. For much of the twentieth century the community suffered from crime and abandonment, but recent immigrants from the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and Africa have breathed life back into the neighborhood, as have several hundred artists, who were drawn by the neighborhood’s cheap housing and proximity to Manhattan. During the 1990s, crime in St. George fell dramatically and the population gained 18 percent.

The Department of Transportation promises that the new, $84 million St. George Ferry Terminal will be a “gateway” to the growing number of cultural and recreational destinations in the area. Each year, more than one million tourists ride the ferry from Manhattan to Staten Island, but few make it off the boat, in part because the current terminal, a dispiriting concrete bunker, provides no clue that a funky neighborhood lies just up the hill. Planners say the new terminal will take advantage of waterfront views and that a scenic walkway, retail stores, performance plaza, and restaurant will encourage tourists and commuters to linger. The Staten Island Yankees’ ballpark, opened alongside the terminal in 2001, provides a glimpse of the future redeveloped waterfront.

“Cultural development is a topic that causes excitement in the community; everyone’s thinking, can you be next Williamsburg?” says Laura Jean Watters, executive director of the Council on the Arts & Humanities for Staten Island. In addition to providing artists’ grants, the council is working to lay the groundwork for arts tourism. Since 1998, the agency has partnered with the Downtown Alliance to operate V.I.S.I.T. (Vital Information for Staten Islanders and Tourists), an information kiosk at the Whitehall Ferry that distributes a cultural tourism brochure and map for a self-guided walking tour of St. George.

The newly restored WPA murals in Staten Island Borough Hall, just minutes from the ferry, are on the tour. So are the Victorian-era homes in the residential district, which won landmark status in 1994. There’s also the 2,800-seat St. George Theater, a Baroque movie house with every architectural flourish imaginable - murals, stained glass, chandeliers, fountains, statues, and pink marble staircases. The theater has housed poetry readings and other gatherings, and community leaders are lobbying to turn it into a performing arts center.

Investing In The Arts

There are also plans to open a National Lighthouse Museum to showcase the island’s role in maritime history. For nearly a century, starting in 1862, St. George was the headquarters of the National Lighthouse Board, a place to test and inspect fuels, lamps, and lenses, experiment with new designs, and supply lighthouses around the country. The museum will include many of the original buildings, as well as a lighthouse, lightship, and newly refurbished pier.

While often neglectful of the “forgotten borough,” the city has begun to invest in Staten Island. An Alliance for the Arts report that analyzed capital spending on cultural construction projects from 1992 to 2002 found that the lion’s share of city funding was spent in Manhattan (49 percent)—more than twice what was spent on cultural infrastructure in Brooklyn (20 percent), three times more than in Queens (13 percent), four times more than in the Bronx (11 percent), and seven times more than in Staten Island (seven percent). But the city recently spent $8 million to upgrade the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, a former community for retired sailors that has been city-owned since 1976. Snug Harbor attracts 300,000 visitors a year to its botanical garden, children’s museum, art classes, galleries, and performances. Half of the funds went toward the renovation of the 1892 Music Hall, which opened just a year after Carnegie Hall and is thus the city’s second-oldest music venue. In the past, the 750-seat hall has been host mainly to graduation ceremonies and occasional concerts, but its directors now plan to produce a full season of Broadway-style musicals at prices affordable to all Staten Islanders—$25 to $35 a ticket. The first production, of the musical Fiorello!, opened in January.

Local Artists

St. George’s greatest strength lies in its local artists, who have proven both creative and entrepreneurial. While they’d appreciate bigger audiences, they’re not standing by waiting for tourists to arrive. A voluntary registry maintained by Council on the Arts & Humanities for Staten Island includes more than 300 artists in St. George and nearby New Brighton, and there are signs of their activity in the many signs promoting performances and gallery openings in the neighborhood cafes, barber shops, and stores.

The Twisted Gift/Vlepo Gallery is a window into the local arts scene. Vlepo means “I see” in Greek, a tribute to the heritage of the sisters who run it, Martha and Tanya Trivizas. Tanya runs the business side, using the gift shop to showcase the work of local potters, jewelry makers, and designers. Martha, a painter, fills the gallery with work she finds through studio tours and word of mouth. “I thought the gift shop could help to subsidize the gallery,” says Tanya. “What’s been surprising is that, since Christmas, the gallery has become even more successful than the shop.”

Dan Icolari, a writer and St. George resident since 1977, hopes to create cultural aficionados among his neighbors. “I’m interested in developing a market for artists who are here and who have been here,” he says. “It’s not like Williamsburg, where someone blows a whistle and artists arrive.”

Together with Steve Mutt, a well-known redware artist, Icolari has played host to the Friends of Fire pottery exhibit in his back garden for the past three summers. “I want to make art immediate and accessible - not to lower standards, but to bring serious work to more people,” Icolari says, mentioning that he once hung paintings by local artists on the trees around his home.

Gentrification Ahead?

Graphic artist Robin Locke Monda has created a satirical poster of what Staten Island would look like if it were left to get-rich-quick developers. On the poster, the island is divided up into areas with signs advertising the “World’s Biggest Dump,” and “Madame Tussaud’s Wax Botanical Garden.”

 

It’s a warning about the dangers of viewing communities as “destinations,” of putting tourist dollars ahead of people. While it’s too soon to be worrying about this issue in St. George — rents are still cheap, and many storefronts sit empty — there’s now abundant evidence that cultural development often leads to gentrification and displacement, often of the very artists who helped to catalyze economic activity.

Through her work at Council on the Arts & Humanities for Staten Island, Watters is laying plans to avoid this pattern. “Cultural development in St. George is at place where we can put in safeguards for artists and others," such as spaces specifically reserved for artists and cultural empowerment zones. “Ultimately,” she says, “development has to be driven by artists themselves.”

 

Helping New Yorkers Vote


Related Articles:
• Election Day Voter Registration by Scott Stringer

Suddenly, in a New York minute, both houses of the New York State legislature last week passed a sweeping array of bills aimed at improving the election system. There are two separate packages, though, and they offer very different ways of reforming New York’s broken electoral process.

But at least they offer something. This flurry of legislation comes after two years of delays.

The legislature is acting because, as I wrote a year ago, New York, like every other state, is facing a deadline imposed by the federal Help America Vote Act, or HAVA. Thus far, the process for implementing the law has been tenuous, partisan, political, and vague.

HELPING, AND HINDERING, BEGINS IN WASHINGTON

The Help America Vote Act was enacted after the messy 2000 presidential election and is designed to reform the election process by
  • upgrading voting machines,
  • implementing statewide voter databases,
  • requiring identification checks for first-time voters by mail,
  • allowing full access to voters with disabilities and voters whose primary language is not English the opportunity to cast an independent ballot
  • and creating an Election Assistance Commission.
For the first time in history, the federal government is giving states the money to make these necessary reforms to their voting systems. Advocates and government watchdogs have seen the law as an opportunity but also as a liability.

 

To begin with, the statute is vaguely written and open to much interpretation by the states. But the problems in implementing it also start in Washington, where there have been numerous delays. Though the bill was signed into law in 2002, for example, no members were named to the Election Assistance Commission until a few months ago.

The delays in Washington have aggravated delays in New York State, which is required to come up with a plan that is approved by the federal commission. Because the commission was late in forming, New York has applied for a waiver until 2006 to be in compliance with the Help America Vote Act – and this includes purchasing new voting machines.

A NEW YORK STATE OF MINDLESSNESS

It would be wrong to blame Washington alone. New York is nowhere near having the clear, accountable, and efficient system the federal law gives states the opportunity to create. The Coalition on Voter Implementation, made up of New York City's leading civic organizations, has lambasted the New York State Board of Elections Task Force on HAVA Implementation for a poorly designed process and for producing an implementation plan that is extremely vague. The Board of Elections wrote the final "task force report" without any input from the members of the task force, some of whom were so displeased with the results that they issued a minority report last fall that included much more detail over how to implement the federal statute and actually reform the voting system.

 

Assembly vs. Senate
The New York State Legislature has been responsive to the opportunity to reform the election system. Last year, the Assembly passed a great package of legislation that aimed to add details to the task force plan. The legislation would:

  • expand the range of identification voters could use at the polls,
  • push for voter-verified audit trails (the cause for much debate nationwide),
  • urge a single statewide machine,
  • give custody of the machines to the counties,
  • and improve poll worker training.

All these bills died in the Senate last session.

But on February 23rd, there was much action in Albany on election reform. Assembly Speaker Silver held a press conference to re-introduce the Help America Vote Act package of legislation, which passed the Assembly that day. Senate Election Law Committee Chair Thomas Morahan countered by introducing six HAVA-related bills of his own, which passed the Senate that same afternoon.

The Assembly bills provide an urgently needed first step towards a uniform, cleanly administered voting system for every New Yorker. Provisions in the Senate bills allow for a better complaint procedure for voters.

Only if the two work together will New York become more accountable for its election system.

But even this would not be enough to provide a better and cleaner election system. That would require the passage of a few other bills that have been introduced in the Senate and Assembly:

Assemblymember Stringer is leading the fight for Election Day Voter Registration, a proven solution to low voter turnout and voter apathy among young voters. It has proven to increase voter turnout above the national average, made it easier for voters who move to register more easily, has led to fewer reported problems with fraud, administrative complexity, or excessive cost in the six states that permit same-day registration, and reduced the number of provisional ballots and accompanying cumbersome administrative demands on registrars. Election Day registration would allow New Yorkers who get interested in an election two weeks before Election Day the opportunity to vote.

Assemblymember Peter Rivera has introduced a bill that will eliminate the full-face ballot requirement - a procedure in which New Yorkers vote off of a huge page that includes the names of every person running for office in that election. The problems with full-face ballot are many: voters with disabilities have problems reaching the ballot, voters with cognitive disabilities have problems when confronted with the information on the ballot, and districts with more than one language on the ballot as prescribed by the Voting Rights Act are prone to a ballot in tiny print that makes it hard to read. The full-face ballot is also much more expensive than a regular ballot, and the full-face ballot limits New York to a few voting machine vendors - which also excludes machine vendors the disabilities community endorses. The reasons for changing the full-face ballot are many and necessary.

Jillian Matundan is the election reform associate of Citizens Union Foundation, the publisher of Gotham Gazette.

Election Day Voter Registration


Related Articles:
• Helping New Yorkers Vote by Jillian Matundan

They call it Super Tuesday, but to too many voters, there is nothing super about it. These are the voters who will be barred from voting simply because they did not register in time.

The New York City Board of Elections requires registration at least 25 days before an election. That means that New York City residents wanting to vote in the March 2nd presidential primary had to be registered by February 6th. The effect of this rule is to lock out from the process new voters who had recently moved or just turned 18. But it also excludes people who did not become interested in the contest until things started heating up in the last few weeks.

This is why it makes sense for New York to follow the lead of six other states and allow for voters to register and vote on Election Day.

Unlike other states that are able to enact Election Day registration through legislation alone, New York must also amend its constitution to allow for it. It is worth doing it.

HELPING VOTER TURNOUT

The New York State Constitution currently requires eligible voters to register at least 10 days before an election. The requirement has real consequences for electoral participation.

 

New York ranked near the bottom (41st in the nation) in turnout of voting age population in the 2000 presidential election, according to the Federal Election Commission. In the 2002 mid-term election, turnout was dismal: Only 32.3 percent of New York's voting age population bothered to vote, a four percent decrease from the 1998 mid-term election.

Election Day registration allows people to register on Election Day at their polling site and then vote by affidavit or paper ballot. The six states (Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Wyoming) that permit this have average turnout rates of 63 percent, which is as much as 10 percentage points higher than the national average -- and 13 percent more than New York State. These six states also have up to 90 percent of eligible voters registered and seven out of ten people actually vote, according to the FEC. The Committee for the Study of the American Electorate showed that Election Day registration states had an average turnout increase by about five percent between 1996 and 2000. By comparison, in all 50 states, the average turnout increase from 1996 to 2000 was less than half that – about two percent.

Opponents of Election Day registration cite fears concerning election fraud to argue that it does not belong in New York. However, this is not the experience of the six states that permit it. They have not reported any increased cases of election fraud since implementing Election Day registration. Instead, their experience demonstrates that Election Day registration is a proven method for increasing voter participation.

Election Day registration in New York would certainly include stringent requirements to protect the integrity of New York's voting process. An example may be the requirement that a new voter present two forms of identification when registering on election day, which is a more stringent requirement than the current regulations. New York should also allow for registration at the polling place, not the central board offices, to encourage new voters to feel more integrated into the electoral process.

No one can know, of course, how many more people will vote as a result of Election Day registration in New York, but by looking at the turnout rate of the voting age population in the six states that currently permit it, New York could potentially see the participation of more than a million new voters.

CHANGING NEW YORK'S CONSTITUTION

While a constitutional change is a lengthy process that presents a healthy challenge, it does create ample time for debate and consensus building. In order to become law, legislation amending the state constitution (the bill number is A.5800) will have to pass both the Assembly and the Senate in two different legislative sessions and, then, be put before the voters in a statewide ballot. This substantial requirement for enactment guarantees that the proposal will be vetted thoroughly and supported by a wide range of interest groups across the state.

The goal is democratic and the benefits are proven. Imagine having an election where everyone could participate and eligible voters could wait until Election Day to decide to register and vote. Candidates would have to campaign in all parts of their districts and take nothing for granted. Injecting this uncertainty into often-lackluster campaigns would make incumbents work harder to be more responsive to the needs of all of their constituents.

In the wake of the 2000 presidential election fiasco that led to mass confusion and doubt about vote counting procedures and the electoral system as a whole, New York State should take bold measures to restore and strengthen the public's confidence. Election Day registration is an appropriate and timely measure that will revitalize democracy in a state that has maintained a poor turnout record for years.

Scott Stringer is a member of the New York State Assembly, representing the Upper West Side.



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