Though some people were more than happy to see Olafur Eliasson’s New York City Waterfalls dry up a few weeks ago, one person who will dearly miss them is the mayor.
Standing beneath the Scandinavian artist’s massive mirror installation at P.S. 1 yesterday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced with great excitement that, according to a study undertaken by the city’s Economic Development Corporation, the falls generated $69 million in economic activity, exceeding the $55 million initially expected and countering criticism that the $15 million project was wasteful.
“Art also has the power to invigorate neighborhoods, as you know, and catalyze new investment” Bloomberg said. “That’s why we’ve made investing in culture a major part of our efforts to diversify the economy.” He added that this would be especially important in the wake of the collapsing financial sector–long the bedrock of the local economy.
While it will likely never reap the dividends Wall Street once did, it is good to know we can put our art to work for us, rather than simply embracing art for art’s sake. Other findings of the report include:
- An estimated 1.4 million people visited the Waterfalls in the 13 weeks it was up this summer. Of those, 79,200 would not have visited the city or otherwise extended their trip, and 590,000 people from the metropolitan area made special trips to view the falls. They drew people from all 50 states and 55 countries.
- As part of the administration’s plan to revitalize the Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn waterfronts, 23 percent of visitors, or 320,000 people, visited those areas for the first time. Of them, 44,500 were residents of the five boroughs.
- About 95 percent of all out-of-town Waterfalls viewers participated in at least one other cultural attraction during their stay. About 43 percent of visitors attended one or more Broadway shows; 42 percent attended a visual art, photography, or design museum; 34 percent visited a history museum; and nearly 27 percent viewed a public art installation other than the Waterfalls.
- Circle Line Downtown offered between 25 and 30 tours a day, with sell-outs on many tours, particularly during its evening cruises. Between June 26 and October 13, more than 213,000 passengers bought tickets for Circle Line Downtown’s Waterfalls tour, Zephyr and Shark boat tours that all went past the Waterfalls.
- The Public Art Fund’s official Waterfalls website, nycwaterfalls.org, received more than 512,000 visits between January and October 2008. More than 6,000 photographs were posted to Flickr, 1,200 blog posts were written, and 200 videos with 235,000 viewers uploaded to YouTube. [Here’s a personal favorite because, you know, who doesn’t love models.]
The full report [PDF]