City Lore is a pioneer in working collaboratively with folk and community-based artists, embracing different aesthetics for the creation of art in an urban context.
See what exhibition is currently showing at the City Lore gallery.
Click on City Lore’s dynamic story map featuring video highlights from our more than 35 years documenting New York City’s diverse cultural traditions.
The Cutural Ambassadors Leadership program aims to equip a generation of cultural leaders whose life’s work is to further the cultural and artistic wellbeing of their communities. The Creative Traditions Network aims to create a cohort of folk and community-based artists engaged in the cultural life of their communities
Sense & the City is a monthly blog exploring the hidden corners of New York City. Each month’s post is devoted to one of the five senses, as well as a special feature, 29 Cool Thing to do in New York.
What We Bring spotlights the contributions of artists from New York City’s immigrant communities.
The People’s Hall of Fame is an awards celebration established in 1993 that honors grassroots contributions to New York’s cultural life. Taking as its symbol a historic New York subway token, we present “tokens of our esteem” to individuals and organizations who are contributing creatively to the folk culture of New York City.
The City Lore Archive documents–and thereby preserves–the work of folk and community-based arts and artists to maintain a record for posterity of the quotidian of the times. Materials held in the Archive are those internally generated by City Lore Inc or those donated to the organization. The collection supports the ongoing work of City Lore staff and is accessible to outside researchers by appointment.
Each year City Lore produces a People’s City Report Card to guage how New York City is doing in terms of community-based cultural expressions ranging from parades to community gardens to street vendors and performers.
City Lore is engaged in a new initiative to digitize and disseminate the music scores and song charts of the 369th Regiment Historical Society for future generations of musicians and the public, and, in the process, tell their important (and in the case of the Puerto Rican musician’s their largely untold) story.
