Promoting the arts in Midtown Manhattan since 1976
We bring community together
The Conservancy is a vibrant hub of arts and culture, hosting hundreds of performances and visual art exhibits every year. Partnering with Saint Peter's Church, Grand Central Partnership, and the Older Adults Center at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, we bring the community together through engaging programs like our popular Jazz on the Plaza series, public art galleries, artist talks, dance workshops, music lessons, and Off-Broadway plays and musicals.
Whether indoors at our Center for Community, Arts and Culture or outdoors on the adjacent public plaza, our events are free or affordably priced, ensuring everyone can enjoy the arts!
(Brian Hatton)
1950s
Public Art Gallery
In the 1950s, Saint Peter’s launched a visual art gallery curated by Elaine de Kooning, a passionate advocate of Abstract Expressionism. Now located in the Center for Community, Arts and Culture and under the Conservancy's leadership, this gallery has expanded to multiple galleries. This visual arts program remains one of New York City’s longest-running public art programs, offering free exhibitions to the public.
(Saint Peter’s Archive)
1960s
Rich Jazz Legacy
Duke Ellington called Pastor John Garcia Gensel “the Shepherd who watches over the night flock” – immortalizing him in a jazz piece of the same name. He cultivated relationships with Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Strayhorn and so many others. Among other things, this deep connection to jazz inspired the Conservancy’s beloved Jazz on the Plaza series, featuring free performances by renowned artists like Jon Batiste, Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, and many more. In the iconic Jazz Memorial series, titans of the jazz world are regularly remembered here: from Miles Davis and Theolonius Monk to Sheila Jordan and Roy Ayers.
Louise Nevelson’s Chapel of the Good Shepherd (Marco Anelli)
Midtown Arts Common & Nevelson Chapel
1970s
The Conservancy was originally incorporated as Midtown Arts Common (MAC) in 1976 with the development and construction of Citicorp Center, including the 601 Lexington Avenue tower and Saint Peter's Church. From the very beginning, its mission has been to provide public arts in the Center’s cultural spaces.
The arts have been central to the Church’s legacy in its more than 120 years on this land. MAC formalized a secular approach to engaging artists and audiences.
Lousie Nevelson crafted an entire public environment she called “A Gift to the Universe” and “An Oasis of Silence.” Nevelson Chapel, completed in 1977, remains her only completely intact environment always open to the public. Beginning in 2016, this space underwent a significant and celebrated restoration resulting not only in the conservation of her masterwork but an entire body of research.
(Saint Peter’s Archive)
1980s
Public Music Series
Within the then-newly built Citicorp Center and Saint Peter’s Church, Midtown Arts Common launched a weekly Classical Music Series, which provided opportunities for community musicians to present public recitals without the burden of overhead costs.
Edmund Anderson, a close friend and collaborator of Duke Ellington, programmed a weekly Midday Jazz Midtown series presenting the very best of New York City Jazz:. Succeed by Ronny Whyte, the series grew and will re-launch after construction is completed in 2028.
(York Theater)
Curtain Rising on Theater
1990s
While in 1996 York Theater began a multi-decade residency in our blackbox theater, the very first productions took place back in the 1950s in a decommissioned bowling alley owned by the church. This space, Saint Peter’s Gate, hosted a weekly theater-at-noon script-reading/production-development program as well as occasional shows. When CitiCorp Center opened in 1977, the very first production in the new theater was Elephant Man – its U.S. debut – which launched many MAC-produced performances. While the space was destroyed following the 2021 NYC watermain break, the Conservancy is actively working to rebuild the theater and secure the future of community-accessible productions at a time of great uncertainty for the arts.
Jazz on the Plaza (Saint Peter’s Archives)
2000s
Events on the Plaza
In partnership with BXP, Grand Central Partnership and Saint Peter’s Church, the Conservancy launched New York City’s premiere outdoor public jazz concert series: Jazz on the Plaza. Stretching nearly an entire city block — nestled under the 601 Lexington Avenue tower and the public square just outside of Saint Peter’s — activating this space has brought office-workers, tourists, residents and the general public into contact with a wide breadth of jazz musicians, from Jon Batiste to Marcus Gillmore, Catherine Russell to Ron Jackson.
(Saint Peter’s Archive)
Celebrating Folkloric Arts & Dance
2010s
In 2012 the Conservancy embraced and helped cultivate a home for a wide array of folkloric artforms from Latin America. The Mariachi Academy of New York, Ballet Folkorico Quetzalcoatl, Rio de la Plata Folkloric Dance and more offered their education programs and performances here. A resurgence of Dance — classical and contemporary — also emerged, bringing about the creation of new works. With the rebuilding of the Center for Community, Arts and Culture, following the devastating 2021 NYC watermain break, these and other important groups will be able to return and continue to expand connection to community.
(Saint Peter’s Archive)
2020s
The Conservancy
A major campaign to conserve Louise Nevelson’s masterwork began in 2016. Aimed at supporting not only for much needed maintenance and restoration, as well as fundraising towards endowments, a Nevelson Legacy Council set out to reinvigorate the appreciation of Nevelson as a whole and bring attention to her masterwork, Nevelson Chapel. That effort has involved artists, collectors, museums, schools, philanthropists and the general public in this community-wide effort.
A NYC watermain break in January 2021, destroyed nearly all of the Conservancy's vital public art spaces. In 2023, Midtown Arts Common recommitted itself to public arts and expanded its reach to include architectural preservation. In the wake of this tragedy, a newly-conceived Board guided the renaming of the organization as The Arts and Architecture Conservancy at Saint Peter’s to reflect its nonprofit responsibility of expanding arts and culture programming and continuing to promote public art initiatives throughout the three-level complex of the Center for Community, Arts and Culture.
Through its commitment to the arts, the Conservancy continues to be a vibrant cultural hub in the heart of the city.