A Citysearch for Chelsea

Among the 20 members of the Chelsea Cultural Partnership are (l-r) Megan Sprenger, Director of Marketing for Dance Theater Workshop; Larry Henry, Director of Development of The Joyce Theater; Tim McHenry, Producer; and Caroline Press, Communications Consultant of the Rubin Museum of Art, where the four are gathered here.

Neighborhood arts organizations partner online

By Rebecca Cathcart

Picture Chelsea from a bird’s-eye view. The neighborhood, from 14th Street to roughly Penn Station and Sixth Avenue to the Hudson, is full of galleries and performance spaces. In fact, if you marked all of the cultural institutions in Chelsea with pins, you’d be looking down on a forest of silver columns—or the interactive map that is currently in the works at DestinationChelsea.org. The website was created by the Chelsea Cultural Partnership (CCP), a collaborative organization started in 2003 by Dance Theater Workshop, The Joyce Theater, and the Atlantic Theater Company to foster ties among local arts institutions. Today, CCP comprises 20 member organizations and works with local businesses to promote the neighborhood.

“It’s a tool, not just a website,” said Megan Sprenger, director of marketing for the Dance Theater workshop. “It’s like the Citysearch for Chelsea.”

Sprenger met with Chelsea Now in the café of The Rubin Museum on W. 17th Street on a recent afternoon, along with Caroline Press, head of communications for the museum, and Destination Chelsea web producer Jodi Bender. They discussed plans for the interactive website that would cater to the needs of Chelsea residents as well as tourists.

“We want people who live here to stay here and spend their dollars,” Sprenger explained. “But we also want people visiting New York for the first time to realize what a little nexus of cultural activity there is in Chelsea. There isn’t any other neighborhood quite like this in such a small area.”

Networking among CCP’s member organizations is starting to yield collaborations between the 20 non-profits. Dance Theater Workshop has held receptions in The Rubin Museum café during their Friday evening “K2 lounge.” Each member organization distributes promotional material for the others, and all share their mailing lists.

“We’re hoping to have big events as well,” said Press, “like street fairs that are culture-oriented, where each of us would have a booth with activities, or demonstrations of dance.” It’s a huge change from the disparate co-existence that characterized Chelsea institutions in decades past.

“Even with non-profit organizations you can be competitive with each other for audiences, for space, or whatever,” explained Press. “But the great thing about the Cultural Partnership is that here we have all these institutions with the same focus and we’re saying, ‘let’s join forces and work as partners to get the word out and to attract people to Chelsea.’ ”

Early on, Christine Quinn championed the Partnership and garnered funding from the city’s Small Business Services and the Department of Community Affairs. CCP held annual events, such as the one-day “Fall for Chelsea” promotion in 2005 and “13 Thursdays” in 2006, directing visitors to area galleries and offering discounts to member organizations and local restaurants. Last year, CCP won New York City’s 2006 Neighborhood Achievement Award.

“Finally, this year, it’s really taken root,” said Sprenger, who started working on CCP as an intern in 2003. “Three years in, we have a lot of experience under our belt. We know what we’re doing. It’s about cross marketing. It’s about Chelsea. It’s about the arts in Chelsea, not necessarily Tenth Avenue arts, but about bringing everyone to all of Chelsea.”

When its re-design is complete, the website will be the main promotional arm of this effort. Work is still under way to move beyond the static, content-driven website that existed prior to its current face-lift, according to Sprenger and Jodi Bender.

“We’re hoping for the blog to take off as a place for residents and non-residents to talk about experiences they had here,” said Sprenger. “It’s not quite there yet.”

Visits to the site have increased in recent weeks, according to Bender, as have subscriptions to the free newsletter.

In addition to the blog, the site will provide events listings, the opportunity for users to rate their experiences at local businesses, and a “business of the week” feature. “We’d like it to be a place to go to get the inside scoop on what’s going on,” said Sprenger.

Starting in September, the group will also hold monthly “Meet the Members” events that will be open to the public. The venue will rotate among CCP members, who will each host receptions and networking events. “These will be the backbone of our outreach effort, sort of a come-and-meet-us, mixed in with spicier events and more personal cross-marketing,” said Sprenger.

Visitors to the website can sign up for a weekly or monthly newsletter with updates on the meeting schedule and other area events and discounts.

Partnership members will meet as a group on the first Tuesday of every month to discuss future projects and brainstorm marketing ideas, such as brochures for area hotels.

“That’s when you really see the benefit of this,” said Press. “The first hour is planning and pleasantries. But after that, everyone starts saying, ‘Ok, I need this from you and that from you.’ That’s where a lot of the collaboration begins.”