From The Peopling of New York City

Flushing Town Hall

History of the Town Hall

Flushing town hall was dedicated on June 7, 1982, and was built with the intention of becoming a proud place where soldiers and government officials could meet. Construction on the Town Hall was completed in 1864. From the very beginning the town hall served many different purposes to the Flushing community including a bank, courthouse, and a library. In 1898 New York City was consolidated and the City took over the building. After the take over, the town hall was never quite the same, the building was tenanted by many different people, but it never reached it's prior glory. In 1967, the landmarks Preservation Commission gave the building protected status as an official landmark. In 1972 the National Park Service named the Town Hall a historic site. In 1990 the Flushing Council on Culture & Arts was chosen to manage the Town Hall, and renovated the building to be used as a multicultural arts center.

The Town Hall Now

The Town Hall is now open to the public again under the management of the Flushing Council on Culture & Arts. The Town Hall holds performances of jazz, classical music, opera, ethnic festivals, and fine art and historical exhibitions. Currently the first floor includes art galleries, performing arts spaces, offices, and a visitors center. The Second Floor has a large theatre space that is often used for shoes and performances.

How the Town Hall has been influenced by immigrants

The purpose of Flushing Town Hall is to ultimately serve their community, which is composed of a large mix of south asians, asians, and hispanics. Their arts and culture programs reflect the community they live in, with annual lunar new year celebrations, and cultural celebration months. The flushing Council on Culture & Arts aims to book culture based award winning artists so that the community will come out and participate. The Town Hall is also open to may public workshops and educational programs. They have interactive arts programs, and recently worked with a mandarin school in the area. They serve bilingual schools and have mix English workshops with translators available as needed. All marketing materials are distributed in English, Spanish, Korean and chinese in order to better reach and serve the Flushing community.

As we can see the Flushing Town Hall has changed over the years in order to serve it's changing immigrant community.