In the Mysterious Fall of New York City’s Culture Czar, ‘The Usual Suspects’ Actor Chazz Palmenteri May Have Played a Part

Did New York City culture czar
Tom Finkelpearl take the fall to protect First Lady Chirlane McCray
in her statue snafu? That’s what some observers say about the
city’s culture commissioner, who announced his resignation last
week.

In a small church in Upper
Manhattan stands a shrine devoted to Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini,
whose remains reside in a glass case under the altar. Some eleven
miles to the south, in Lower Manhattan, a conflict involving the
city’s First Lady and actor Chazz Palminteri over a public monument
to the Catholic Saint preceded the resignation of popular New York
culture czar Tom Finkelpearl, who announced he would
resign after five years
on the job, with no reason for his departure. 

The Palminteri flap arose over
the She Built NYC project, an initiative created by first lady
Chirlane McCray and former deputy mayor Alicia Glen to honor women
who were key to New York’s history. After a study found that just
five of the city’s 150 statues honor women, She Built NYC sought
public nominations for women to memorialize, finally choosing
icons including jazz
titan Billie Holliday and Civil Rights leader Elizabeth Jennings
Graham.

In the She Built NYC process,
Sister Cabrini received 219 nominations from the public, more than
double the next-most-popular candidate, journalist Jane Jacobs, who
had 93. Holiday appears much farther down the list
of nominees, with 16 (in fact, she
appears below the “Triangle Shirtwaist Fire,” which had
26). 

The final list included no
Italian Americans, a snub which did not sit well with Palminteri,
known for his Academy-nominated performance in
Bullets Over Broadway
and as special agent Kujan
in The Usual
Suspects, as well as for
his autobiographical play and movie A Bronx Tale. In an interview on 77 WABC radio, he said of
McCray, “Absolutely, she is being racist. C’mon. As Italian
Americans we have to speak up.” 

Appearing on the same show later
in the month, Palminteri walked back the
accusation of racism,
but demanded an explanation for Cabrini being passed
over. 

The debate with Palminteri was
just one of several high-profile flaps over public monuments in New
York City in the last month. A competition to create a new monument
in East Harlem to replace a statue to the doctor J. Marion Syms was
hit by a protest when community members virulently objected to the
choice of artist Simone Leigh’s design by a city-convened panel of
experts over local favorite Vinnie Bagwell. 

However, the dust-up over the
Sister Cabrini statue may have been more grating for mayor de
Blasio, given that his longtime rival, governor Andrew Cuomo,
personally intervened. In the wake of Palmintieri’s comments, on
Columbus Day, Cuomo announced that he would be committing $750,000
in state funds to erect a monument to Cabrini following the outcry,
making a dig at the She Built NYC snub.  

“With this statue, the Italian
American community, the Catholic community in New York… will feel
satisfied that she is being represented,” Cuomo declared. “Our
asset is our diversity, but to keep the diversity positive, every
group has to feel included.”

The 19 member
commission convened by
Cuomo to find an artist and a location includes Angelo Vivolo of
the Columbus Heritage Coalition, Brooklyn diocese bishop Nicholas
DiMarzio, and FOX Business journalist Maria Bartiromo.

Born in Italy in 1850, Sister
Cabrini came to New York on the Pope’s orders to help poor Italian
immigrants. She was so successful that she ended up building
schools, orphanages, and hospitals on three continents. Pope Pius
XII canonized her in 1946, and she was named Patroness of
Immigrants in 1950. The organization she founded, the Institute of
the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, still operates
on six continents. 

Finkelpearl’s tenure was marked
by ambitious ventures as well as controversy. Along with council
majority leader Jimmy Van Bramer, Finkelpearl headed up the
formation of the first culture
plan for New York City,
released in 2017, which included $18.5 million in new investments
for cultural initiatives. It also introduced a
requirement that many of
the city’s cultural organizations meaningfully diversify their
boards and staff as well as their visitorship. Under his
leadership, the city also launched the IDNYC program, in which city
residents, including undocumented immigrants, could acquire a form
of identification that also secured them benefits at some forty
cultural institutions.

The post In the Mysterious Fall of New York City’s Culture
Czar, ‘The Usual Suspects’ Actor Chazz Palmenteri May Have Played a
Part appeared first on artnet News.