Purchase College and Yonkers city officials recently marked the official opening of the Purchase College Center for Community and Culture in downtown Yonkers.
The arts and educational center occupies a 4,000-square-foot space at 16 Warburton Ave. in the Yonkers waterfront district. The city of Yonkers granted the State University of New York college $330,000 in federal Community Development Block Grant funding for the project.
College officials said the center will focus on how artists, designers, scholars, students and local organizations can act as agents of urban recovery and community empowerment.
The center, dubbed PC4, will offer education programs for both adults and youths, including semester-long and summer-long apprenticeship programs, and promote critical inquiry and creative engagement by Yonkers residents through Purchase College workshops, courses and public programs.
Speaking at an Oct. 21 opening ceremony, Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano said the center “offers a vibrant hub of programming in the arts and effective social activism to Yonkers, which is a true benefit to the youth of our city.”
Purchase College President Thomas J. Schwarz said college officials hope the center “will help foster public engagement and will serve as a cultural anchor for the downtown area.”
The Purchase College Center for Community and Culture currently hosts a class, The Arts for Social Change, led by assistant professor Chris Robbins, a member of the arts group Ghana Think Tank. The class is a laboratory in which Purchase students engage with the Yonkers community and uses public art to promote community engagement and cross-cultural interaction.
Purchase College officials said the college will roll out a series of community programs at the downtown Yonkers center through spring 2016. They include a peace workshop in collaboration with multiple SUNY campuses and a graduate student fellowship program geared to build partnerships with Yonkers residents.
The Purchase College Center for Community and Culture is the second satellite facility in Yonkers opened by a Westchester college this fall. The College of New Rochelle and its School of New Resources has opened an annex at 43 Ashburton Ave. in Schoolhouse Terrace, a municipal housing redevelopment. Â The college this fall launched an undergraduate degree program for adults in Yonkers.
