The Art Gallery at City Hall - now its official name - formally opened at a Wednesday evening reception. An open house for the public is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday.
Arrayed around the new gallery, on the ground floor of City Hall's east side, are new offices for various cultural and arts programs - Steuer and his staff, plus the staff of the reinvigorated Cultural Fund. Before this week, Steuer's offices were lodged in an obscure and dingy suite of rooms on the seventh floor of City Hall.
Art and its agents, for the first time, are now united in one public, accessible location (no sign-in sheet or security check required) - tangible evidence of Mayor Nutter's insistence on bringing the arts into the larger policy-making arena.
Nutter promised to resurrect the city's Office of Arts and Culture, which he has done. Steuer argues that his own presence makes good on the mayor's promise and that the opening of the new gallery "is not just another PR move."
Rather, the gallery and the now-centralized cultural offices - the Cultural Fund offices had been at 1515 Arch St. - are "a reflection of the mayor's commitment to arts and culture as central to the city."
The Office of Arts and Culture was shuttered in a budget squeeze in 2004, during the Street administration. Arts organizations urged its revival, and Nutter campaigned on a promise to do so.
"I'm here," noted Steuer, "and that's a major thing. The fact that my office, my position is at the cabinet level is very important, and that wasn't the case even in the Rendell administration."
