This is a moment of critical mass for culture in New York, and it looks both energizing and daunting. Sixteen arts institutions in Manhattan alone are in the process of raising more than $3 billion for projects from the ambitious (the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new wing for modern and contemporary works) to the more modest but long awaited (the Irish Arts Center’s new Hell’s Kitchen home).  It’s the kind of boom that can be stirring for art fans but that raises questions about how all this money can be raised simultaneously, particularly when foreign markets have created some financial uncertainty. It’s also not clear the city will continue to be as generous toward cultural capital projects as it was under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. So development directors will have to count on private dollars for the bulk of their fund-raising.  Planned building and endowment projects, in millions  Moreover, the cultural world knows well the potential perils of expansion. If it’s hard to raise money for new buildings, it’s even harder raising money to sustain them. Arts groups learned this lesson the hard way, with some having to pull back on their aspirations — or in a few cases, like the American Folk Art Museum, abandon them entirely — after previous economic downturns.  But still strong is the seduction of the Bilbao Effect — when an architecturally exciting project makes an institution more of a destination, like Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim in Spain. And with the success of the new Whitney Museum of American Art, which is drawing droves downtown, everyone seems to be grabbing for hammers, from the American Museum of Natural History to the New York Philharmonic, where David Geffen has replaced Avery Fisher as the building’s name but where there is much money still to be raised.  (Barry Diller’s cultural peninsula on the Hudson is exempt from such pressure because he is donating $113 million, nearly the entire budget, toward the project, as well as covering overages.)  Veteran “tappers” — those charged with collecting all these capital dollars — seem unfazed by the task at this point. Their confidence is probably buoyed by the knowledge that it’s always been easier to raise money for bricks and mortar than for operating expenses.  “Each of these institutions have loyal supporters who are engaged,” said Daniel Brodsky, a real estate developer who is the chairman of the Metropolitan Museum. “There are many prosperous people in New York City.”  So how do they do it? How do all of these arts groups go hat in hand and get results? Here, The New York Times explores some of these questions now that the cultural — and gala — season is in full swing.  The idea that there are too many projects that can possibly be financed is a myth, said Reynold Levy, the former president of Lincoln Center.  “Tourism has doubled; the amount of wealth in the city has gone sky high,” he said. “Just look up, and you see it in all of our new buildings. A lot is dependent on how well people ask.”  Illustrations by Jennifer Daniel/The New York Times
More than a dozen New York cultural institutions are planning major projects, and fundraisers are racing to tap into the deepest pockets.