Ready For Its Close-Up

Kristy Schopper needed a place to park her truck. The Manhattan-based painter had been thinking of moving to either Long Island City or the Brooklyns waterfront district when she read about the Museum of Modern Arts planned move to the former. "You knew it was going to become a functioning, living arts scene," said Schopper of Long Island City, where she moved three years ago. "It seemed like a great opportunity to get an [arts] movement out of the deal."
Schopper, like MoMA QNS, is planning on sticking around until at least 2005. While MoMA is just one of many arts organizations that have converted the areas former industrial spaces into studios and galleries over the years, its high profile will finally bring Long Island Citys thriving arts community into the spotlight.
"MoMA QNS will draw an audience that none of us could draw on our own, and they have the resources to market the fact that there are so many of us here," said Mary Ceruti, executive director of Manhattans Sculpture Center, which is reopening in Long Island City this fall. Ceruti described her groups move as "a matter of space and resources," since Sculpture Centers carriage house on the Upper East Side was too small for contemporary works and lacked proximity to suppliers of raw materials such as glass and metal.
While her groups decision to move to Queens was not directly related to MoMAs, Ceruti sees MoMAs presence as a boon to neighborhood cultural institutions. "There is no doubt that MoMA QNS has been a catalyst to get the arts organizations to work together," she said, citing MoMAs promotion of the ArtLink, a bus that shuttles visitors between the areas museums.
Nothing draws a crowd like a crowd. The Museum for African Art, which is relocating to Long Island City as it builds a permanent facility at 110 St. and Fifth Ave. in Manhattan, is working with MoMA on street banners and joint advertising. "We decided it would be very exciting to be in Long Island City because of the whole community of arts organizations that are settling down there," said Anne Stark, deputy director of the Museum for African Art. Citing MoMAs relocation as a factor in her museums move, she added, "There is a great sense of adventure and dynamism [in Long Island City]."
That sense of adventure has pervaded a community that is pinning its hopes for economic revitalization on the arrival of a celebrity. "Long Island City has been perceived as a not-ready-for-prime-time neighborhood, but its institutions like MoMA QNS that bring retailers and residents," said Margie Seaman, president of Seaman Realty and Management Co., a commercial real estate broker in Long Island City. "Its so exciting that there is so much interest," said Seaman, who added that she is working with six upscale Manhattan restaurants that are seeking space in the area for second locations.
Businesses that have been in Long Island City for a long time are also optimistic about MoMA QNS impact. "I see a huge change in a positive direction," said Liz Picca, whose family has owned City View Cleaners on Vernon Blvd. for 18 years. "We desperately need more people, and it adds a certain elegance. Its nice to have the artsy people come into the neighborhood."
One contribution the artsy people will make is in the area of education. LaGuardia Community College and four high schools are just a block away from MoMA QNS, and plans are in the works to incorporate field trips there as part of the schools curricula. LaGuardia faculty will receive training from MoMA QNS on how to incorporate technology into their teaching, and the museum will use the colleges lecture halls to give arts talks.
The welcome mat is out for MoMA, but some local artists are concerned that the biggest fish in the pond will overshadow them. "Unless we get ourselves united into some kind of movement, well fall through the cracks," said Kristy Schopper, the painter who followed MoMA to Queens, and who a year ago founded The Space, a community arts center in Queens Plaza.
Still, she believes that MoMA QNS will attract more arts funding to the area, and believes strongly in her neighborhoods creative future. "Theres just no better spot in the world for an active art movement," said Schopper. "I really think Long Island City has got it."