Located only minutes away by ferry from Lower Manhattan, The Arts Center at Governors Island is the first permanent home for arts and culture on Governors Island curated and programmed by LMCC. We envision The Arts Center as an incubator for creative experimentation and a gathering space for public engagement and dialogue.
Work developed and presented at The Arts Center focuses on sustainability and equity. During our public season, visitors can view special gallery exhibitions and participate in monthly programs that provide access and connections to artists and their creative process. Our Take Care Series focuses on art, community, and ecology through hands-on workshops, talks, film screenings. Open Studios take you behind the scenes with LMCC's artists-in-residence. All programming and events at The Arts Center are free and open to the public, and all are welcome.
The Arts Center is also home to working artists from diverse disciplines and practices, all year long. For more information about our Artist Residency programs at The Arts Center, please click here.
The Arts Center at Governors Island will re-open to the public on May 28, 2022.
The Café at The Arts Center is open Friday-Sunday, 11am-4pm.
Exhibitions
The 2022 season at The Arts Center at Governors Island will feature exhibitions by Amy Khoshbin and Jennifer Khoshbin, Elissa Blount-Moorhead and Bradford Young, as well as a participatory installation by Simon Benjamin.
This season's exhibitions center healing, offering audiences a range of perspectives related to how we manage our experiences, individual and collective, and how we might find paths of recovery.
Public Programs
The Take Care Series offers audiences of all ages an opportunity to actively engage in performances, workshops, talks, and other interactive events that embrace ideas of caretaking. This series of free public programs aims to find artfulness in the everyday by exploring creative practices and community projects that emphasize care for ourselves, our communities, and our planet.
Residencies
Since 2010, The Arts Center at Governors Island has provided artists with residency and work space all year round.
Visit
The Arts Center at Governors Island will re-open to the public on May 28, 2022!
The Arts Center is accessible by ferry, and is a one minute walk from Soissons Landing when arriving from Manhattan.
The Arts Center at Governors Island is now closed to the public. We look forward to welcoming you to The Arts Center when we re-open on May 28.
The Café at The Arts Center is open on Thursday–Sunday, from 11am–4pm.
The Arts Center at Governors Island (map)
110 Andes Rd
New York, NY 10004
May 28 - October 30, 2022
Friday-Sunday, 12pm-6pm
July - August: Summer Friday and Saturdays, 12-7pm
Open on Memorial Day (May 30), July 4, Labor Day (Sept 5)
Exhibitions and events at The Arts Center are free and open to the public, and all are welcome.
Ticketing
Tickets are required to visit The Arts Center at Governors Island.
Transportation
The Arts Center is accessible by ferry, and is a one minute walk from Soissons Landing when arriving from Manhattan.
By ferry
The Arts Center is accessible by ferries to Governors Island departing to and from Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. Our building is located to the right of Soissons Landing.
Ferries depart from Lower Manhattan at the Battery Maritime Building to Soissons Landing at Governors Island, and from Brooklyn at Brooklyn Bridge Park on a regular schedule throughout the public season.
For complete ferry schedules and directions to ferry terminals, visit the Governors Island website. All ferries are wheelchair-accessible.
Directions to the Battery Maritime Building
The Battery Maritime Building is located at 10 South Street, adjacent to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal in Lower Manhattan. The ferry terminal is accessible as follows:
By Subway
1 to South Ferry station
4, 5 to Bowling Green station
R to Whitehall St. station
By Bus
M9, M15, and M15-SBS
The Cafe at The Arts Center
The Cafe at The Arts Center is open Thursday - Sunday, 11am - 4pm.
Facilities
Restrooms and water fountains are located on both floors of The Arts Center. All restrooms are accessible. Visitors may choose facilities consistent with their gender identity or expression.
LMCC is committed to ensuring the health and safety of all of our staff, artists, and visitors.
In response to the increasing spread of the COVID-19 Delta variant and in accordance with the Key2NYC Executive Order, visitors seeking access to The Arts Center, including the Café, the gallery exhibitions, and public programs such as The Take Care Series and Open Studios, are required to comply with this order, and must show proof of a completed FDA or WHO vaccination. LMCC staff that interface with the public must also comply with this order, which requires they show proof of a completed FDA or WHO vaccination.
Acceptable proof of vaccination includes:
- NYC COVID Safe App: Android | iOS
- Excelsior Pass
- CDC Vaccination Card (or photo)
- NYC Vaccination Record
- An official immunization record from outside NYC or the U.S
If you received the vaccine outside the U.S., you must have an official immunization record that includes:
- First name and last name
- Date of birth
- Vaccine product name (only vaccines authorized by the WHO are acceptable)
- Date(s) administered
- Site where the vaccine was administered, or name of the person who administered it
Individuals under the age of 12 may enter Key2NYC establishments without displaying proof of vaccination so long as they are accompanied by a legal guardian and wear a face mask, except when eating and drinking, whenever they are unable to maintain six feet of social distance from other people.
To keep staff, artists, and visitors safe, we also ask that if your answer is yes to any of the following questions, that you please stay home and reschedule your visit:
- In the past 10 days, have you experienced any symptoms of COVID-19, including a fever of 100.0 degrees F or greater, a new cough, new loss of taste or smell or shortness of breath AND have not received a negative COVID test?
- In the past 10 days, have you tested positive for COVID-19?
- In the past 10 days, have you had close contact with a confirmed or suspected case of COVID-19 AND are not vaccinated?
When visiting The Arts Center at Governors Island, please keep a distance of 6 feet (or 2 meters) between yourself and other visitors. Visitors are required to wear a mask inside The Arts Center at Governors Island at all times.
We look forward to welcoming you to The Arts Center at Governors Island!
We want to acknowledge that the work we are doing to support artists and communities is happening on the traditional lands of the Lenape people. We are situated on the Lenape Island of Manahatta, today known as New York, and more broadly in Lenapehoking. We offer our respect to the Lenape and other Indigenous caretakers of these lands and waters; and to their elders who have lived here, who live here now, and who will live here in the future.
Part of the ongoing transformation of New York's Governors Island into a vibrant cultural destination, this adaptive reuse of an 1870s munitions storage warehouse supports local artists while providing generous space for public exhibition and events.
To accommodate LMCC's programs, the design called for opening up the interior of the long and narrow two-story building and exposing and restoring the original truss structure, creating 40,000 square foot of flexible, loft-like space. The Arts Center includes a luminous main gallery on the upper level. Smaller rooms for performance, rehearsal, and exhibition as well as art studios arrayed on both levels enjoy abundant natural light. A new stair and elevator allow for integrated, accessible programming, and a cafe framed by an exposed-brick wall offers views of Lower Manhattan and the harbor. In addition to retaining much of the brick, wood, and steel from the existing building, the renovation incorporates energy-efficient systems throughout.
Lead Design Firm
Pei Cobb Free & Partners
Executing Architect
Adamson Associates
Structural & MEP Engineer
Buro Happold Consulting Engineers PC
Recent Awards
AIANY Design Award - American Institute of Architects (AIA) New York, 2021
Winner, Cultural Projects, Global Design Awards - The Architecture Community
American Architecture Award - Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council 2020
American Architecture Award - Chicago Athenaeum, 2020
Award of Merit, Cultural/Worship - Engineering News Record New York, 2020
Interested in hosting a private event at The Arts Center at Governors Island? Complete the form here.
For more information about available spaces, download the PDF.
For any additional questions about rentals, contact Alice Bennahmias, Partnerships Liaison at alice@lmcc.net.
The 2022 season of programming at The Arts Center at Governors Island is made possible, in part, by the Charina Endowment Fund, Howard Gliman Foundation and Con Edison.
LMCC’s Arts Center Residency program is supported, in part, by Cowles Charitable Trust, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Jacques and Natasha Gelman Trust, The Willem de Kooning Foundation, May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc., The Norman & Bettina Roberts Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Milton & Sally Avery Arts Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), Teiger Foundation, Tiger Baron Foundation and YoungArts.
The Arts Center Residency is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
LMCC is also grateful to our many capital supporters. For a list of capital supporters, please visit lmcc.net.
LMCC additionally acknowledges our partnership with the Trust for Governors Island.