Regardless of what one may think of Mayor de Blasio’s mayoral aptitude, he will get an A+ grade from many more New York City residents today in response to his announced New York City municipal ID program. One of the program's main objectives is to document illegal immigrants and help smooth their paths to productive lives within the boroughs by making it easier to enroll kids in school, open bank accounts, sign rental leases, get services, etc. But of course, any new program principally designed to identify and benefit illegal, undocumented workers will automatically carry a yucky stigma.
Today, Mayor de Blasio removed that stigma by stocking the New York City ID card full of free and prestigious cultural benefits and making it available to ALL New York City residents who happily won't leave home without it. He should call it the New York City Gold Card. His program will plow millions of dollars into New York City's cultural landscape and bring masses of new people into the cultural institutions to experience the best side of living in New York.
Thirty-three major cultural organizations in the city are going to give holders of the New York City municipal ID one-year memberships of the type they offer their regular patrons to use during all of 2015. Many of the organizations will mail out membership packets with cards, lists of benefits, etc. to NYC ID holders.
Applause for the New York City Ballet for participating in the program which, with the application of a little administrative and marketing elbow grease, will bring truly new audiences from every culture in the city into the world of ballet, as well as people who perhaps knew of ballet in their former countries but who could not gain access to it here or were fearful to try.
Applause for Carnegie Hall for participating in the program. Applause for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Bronx Zoo, American Museum of Natural History, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Met Museum, New York City Center, The Public Theater, and all of the other cultural organizations who are participating.
Look at this list of organizations and benefits! This is truly one of the most remarkable, generous, and brilliant efforts to leverage this city’s greatest attribute, its culture, to solve a problem that we have ever seen.
Many of us routinely join a few of these organizations each year to show our support for what we love. But to have the opportunity to join EVERY ONE of them for 2015 at no cost is incredible.
2015 is going to be The Year of New York City Culture.