Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in the 1960s symbolized the rise of New York as a “Culture City,” defined by the prominence of the arts in public life and on the world stage. But so too did Jane Jacobs’ “sidewalk ballet” and the common belief that the city’s most compelling attribute was its “theater of the streets.” The consolidation of a municipal cultural policy that occurred during this era shifted the debate about the role of the arts in the city from architecture and buildings to the outdoor environment; from established institutions to activities on the streets and subways; and from a time-bound rehearsed performance to the spectacles of the everyday. The broadening rhetoric of the period—the arts are for everyone—demanded government action to realize but limitations in those actions pushed the arts into parks, subways, and streets. Does the city inspire creativity in its residents? Does municipal cultural policy address both a Broadway play and dancers on the subway? Students conduct archival and ethnographic research for semester-long projects that investigate the historical context of the contemporary embrace of the arts as a tool for urban place-making, neighborhood revitalization, and economic boosterism.