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.

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.
Poetry plays a key role in New York’s ethnic and cultural communities. For many immigrant communities, poetry is the most accessible and profound way for people to express themselves. Every community in New York City has its poets. City Lore is committed to finding ways to give these poets voice, finding the venues and formats for them to convey their artistry to their own communities and to the city at large, often finding new and innovative ways to communicate across languages.​
Education is core to City Lore’s mission of advancing cultural equity. We bring a uniquely cultural and decolonial lens to arts education by centering culturally-rooted arts, including folk and traditional art practitioners, in meaningful ways that connect to young people’s own heritages, identities, experiences, and communities.
City Lore develops a wide range of special projects, some generated by the staff and others by talented filmmakers, folklorists, artists, and historians who are developing innovative projects in keeping with our mission City Lore produces documentary films and collaborates with filmmakers whose work relates to the organization’s mission.