Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District

The Brooklyn Cultural District (formerly known as the BAM-Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District) is a $100 million development project that focuses on the arts, public spaces and affordable housing^[1] in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York. The project reflected the joint efforts of New York City's Economic Development Corporation, the Department of Cultural Affairs, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the Department of City Planning, and the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership to continue to develop the Brooklyn neighborhood area. Joining the area's longtime institutional stakeholders (BAM, the Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Public Library) are new homes for Mark Morris Dance Group, Theatre for a New Audience, UrbanGlass and BRIC Arts and the BAM's Fisher Building.

The district, roughly bounded by Flatbush Avenue, Fulton Street and Hanson Place,^[2] has been the focus of development since 2004 when 80 Arts/the James E. Davis Arts Building was renovated to be home to twelve nonprofit arts groups. After a series of stops and starts during which the district's future was uncertain,^[3] this was followed in 2008 by the opening of the Irondale Center for Theater, Education and Outreach in the historic Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church.^[4] Performing arts spaces, ISSUE Project Room at 22 Boerum Place, and BAM Fisher at 321 Ashland Place, followed in 2012. As of 2014, there are plans for a further expansion to include additional theater, Bang on a Can, Cool Culture, and the reopening of BAM Park, among others.^[2][5] Plans are also in the work for "BAM South," to be developed by Two Trees to bring affordable housing to the neighborhood.^[6]

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