Could Art Education Save Kingston?

  |  October 22, 2014
uptown kingston

We enjoyed a recent editorial in the Kingston Times penned by Dan Barton that outlined how Kingston could learn to thrive based on what’s happened to Savannah, Georgia. It’s appropriate subject matter given the Ulster County city (and New York’s first capital) is still flush from the success of the O+ Festival, which was held last week. The festival shone light on the local music and arts scene, and the arts is what turned Savannah’s fortunes around, thanks to the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). SCAD had a big positive influence on the local economy, bolstering businesses and building owners who reaped profits from rental properties. Furthermore, housing SCAD amongst Savannah’s historical buildings meant they would be utilized as well as preserved. Barton writes:

“Now that, dear readers, is economic development. Hey, what other city has an abundance of empty civic in commercial space and a burgeoning art scene? Could it be … Kingston?

Yes, duh. Something like this, if it succeeds like it did in Savannah, could transform our city and bring true, sustainable and perennial growth, and shift K-town’s paradigm for good. An art school would draw an ever-changing tide of young, energetic people to town, with pockets full of their families’ money. All the buildings people currently fret about being or about to be vacant — the Cioni Building, Woolworth’s, any number of Midtown industrial spaces and shuttered schools — would be fixed up and filled up with useful (and ecologically friendly) things going on. Natives could get decent work for this institution; landlords could make good money renting places to students.”

He goes on to postulate at the end of the piece that opening an art school in Kingston might be just a tad savvier of a plan than selling water from Cooper Lake, which provides Kingston its drinking water, to the Niagara Bottling Company. So who’s going to get this ball rolling?

Read On, Reader...