Justice
Lifting a Small Town Through a Land Bank Arts Program
In Newburgh, New York, a new “Artist-in-Vacancy” program aims to show the community as charged—not afflicted—by its past.
Renewal schemes, brought on by familiar scourges of 20th-century urban life—deindustrialization, racial discord, and a sprawling push away from downtown—gashed a thousand tears in the fabric of Newburgh, New York.
This small, dense city of approximately 28,000—roughly 65 miles north of New York City—hugs the Hudson River against a backdrop of urban renewal scars and architectural might. Its eclectic collection of late 19th-century styles stand sentry, many rotting and atop crumbling streets.