Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll find out what’s next for the Irish Arts Center in the Hell’s Kitchen section of Manhattan. We’ll also look at how a Democratic has positioned herself in hopes of flipping a House seat in the lower Hudson Valley.
When Aidan Connolly became the executive director of the Irish Arts Center in 2007, it had one building in the Hell’s Kitchen section of Manhattan, a staff of four people and an annual budget of $690,000.
Now the center has two buildings and a full-time payroll of 26, with an annual budget of $8.7 million. It has lined up $40 million for a makeover of that first building on West 51st Street, which it has occupied since the 1970s. And Connolly has decided that it’s the moment to figure out the next chapter for himself.
With the top-to-bottom renovation of the West 51st Street building scheduled to begin early next year, he plans to step down as executive director in mid-2027. He will work as an adviser to the board, dividing his time between the center and the University of Galway, where he will be a visiting scholar, teaching and “distilling lessons” from the last 20 years in what will amount to an autobiographical instruction manual for small- to medium-size nonprofits.
“I’ve been preparing myself for the idea that there would be a finish line,” he said, calling his time at the center “an opportunity to create something that embraced the old and the new” and was “welcoming for people of all backgrounds.”
Connolly has overseen a transition, making the center into what he called an intimately scaled hybrid of 92NY and the Brooklyn Academy of Music that is steeped in “Irishness,” as he put it, but is also eclectic. “If you’re going to build an Irish arts center,” he said, “it can’t be some siloed thing for Irish people. It needs to be relevant to New Yorkers; not 100 percent of them but a cross-section.”
The center operated for decades from the West 51st Street building. It then added the other building, around the corner on Ninth Avenue, completing the $60 million project as the pandemic was beginning to ease in 2021. Connolly described the project, which gave the center a black-box theater that can seat as many as 199 people, as more than an upgrade. “The opportunity was to create a multidisciplinary institution,” he said.
But the center’s offices remained around the corner in the 51st Street building, along with its original theater. That space is to be occupied by a 75-seat venue that can also serve as a rehearsal studio and a space for community events, Connolly said. The plans were designed by the architecture firm Davis Brody Bond, which also designed the Ninth Avenue building. Almost half of the $40 million for the project came from grants from New York City and New York State, with the Irish government contributing $9.07 million and the rest coming from foundations and individual donors.
Connolly, 55, grew up in Newington, Conn., the son of Irish immigrants. After college he appeared in regional productions and national tours of such shows as “Forever Plaid,” “My Fair Lady” and “The Secret Garden.”
By the late 1990s, he said, he was ready to try something different. He worked as a volunteer in Al Gore’s fund-raising operation during the 2000 presidential campaign, which led to work with a consulting firm and eventually to the New York State Senate, where he was the chief of staff to State Senator Eric T. Schneiderman. (Schneiderman, who was elected attorney general in 2010, resigned in disgrace in 2018 amid allegations of sexual abuse.)
“For me, the huge revelation of that period of time was you can make challenging things happen by bringing people together and being strategic — how do we gather the right funders, the right organizational allies, the right policymakers,” he said. The same approach applies to theater. “This is what producing is: You go out and raise money from people who are generous, and you can put on a show with that money.”
His introduction to the Irish Arts Center came when he was working for Schneiderman. Connolly was among the producers of “The Blowin of Baile Gall” by Ronan Noone there in 2005.
He became the executive director two years later, and it has been “extraordinary to watch his trajectory along with the Irish Arts Center,” said Laura Aden, the president and chief executive officer of the Howard Gilman Foundation, which has given the center nearly $1.8 million over the last 10 years. “His passion for what he’s doing and the results that he’s gotten are unparalleled.”
Weather
Today will be mostly sunny, with a high around 74. Tonight, expect cloudy skies that will gradually become clear as temperatures fall near 66.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until Nov. 1 (All Saints’ Day).
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“As much as people say, ‘You have your faith’ — yes, I do have my faith, but I don’t have my home.” Gladys Cortez-Feliciano, a parishioner at Most Holy Redeemer Roman Catholic Church on the Lower East Side. It was closed more than a year ago; some parishioners now pray in front of its locked gates on Friday evenings and Sunday mornings.
The latest New York news
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Police accountability changes: Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that the Police Department had changed how it would handle parts of its oversight after an officer was allowed to retire before facing a disciplinary trial over the death of a teenager. Mamdani also ordered the police to conduct a review of their use-of-force policies.
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Mamdani skips the Columbus Day parade: The mayor did not march in Manhattan’s Columbus Day parade, which has a tradition of hosting mayors going back decades.
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Feuding with a Brooklyn novelty shop: Kelly Clarkson, the singer and television personality, said that she was made to feel like Julia Roberts’s character in “Pretty Woman” at a shop on Atlantic Avenue, treated as if she was not good enough to shop there.
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Living on $74,000 in Carroll Gardens: Mo Crist went to college intending to become a doctor but, after majoring in English, became an editor at Bloomsbury Publishing, making $74,000 a year. Crist did not choose the career for the money, but money now plays a large role in the choices they make.
To flip a House seat, a Democrat leans on her military background
Cait Conley, the Democrat trying to unseat Representative Mike Lawler in a critical House race in the lower Hudson Valley, has emphasized her time as a soldier with six tours overseas.
Democrats see Conley as one of their best hopes for flipping a seat in the midterms next month. Lawler won a second term two years ago even though Kamala Harris narrowly won the district over President Trump.
Democrats hope that her Army background and patriotic message will help put her in the ranks of other women who used their military careers to connect with voters outside the usual Democratic base, including Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Gov. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey.
But Conley’s somewhat hawkish approach could put her at odds with some Democrats. She has also criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, although she said in a recent debate that did not believe that Israel’s actions in Gaza constituted genocide and that she was against blocking military aid to Israel.
Lawler has characterized Conley as being too far to the left for the district, suggesting that she had much in common with Mamdani and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both democratic socialists. Lawler has defended Trump in town halls across the district, even as the president’s approval ratings have fallen across the country.
METROPOLITAN diary
Hidden gem
Dear Diary:
We went to see Jerry Seinfeld at the Beacon Theater, the early show.
Upon getting home across town, my wife noticed that the stone in her sapphire engagement ring was missing. We looked at a picture we had taken in front of the marquee before the show and saw that the stone had been there then.
We called the theater, but all we got was voice mail. So we took an Uber back to the West Side. We retraced the steps we had taken when we left to no avail.
We found a sympathetic security guard and asked whether we could look for the stone near our seats when the late show was over.
He looked at a picture we had of the stone that showed its shape and color and took a look at our digital tickets that showed where our seats were. He said we could not go in until everyone had left but that he could go and begin to look before that.
When the show ended, he went inside and we waited as people started to stream out.
Finally he returned and opened the door slightly.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I can’t let you in.”
Before we could respond, he added: “Because I found it! It looked like a piece of candy and was exactly under the seat you had been in.”
— Steven Goldstein
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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The post Preparing for His Final Bow at the Irish Arts Center appeared first on New York Times.
