About Us
History
Jamaica Performing Arts Center
Housed in the First Reformed Dutch Church, 1858 Landmark Building, the Jamaica Performing Arts Center is a state-of-the-art 400 seat performance space. It is one of the finest Early Romanesque Revival structures in New York. The building was designed and constructed by master carpenter Sidney J. Young, with the assistance of master mason Anders Peterson. It features a gabled, brick façade with brownstone trim, arched entryways, asymmetrical towers, and stained glass windows. The space was used by the church congregation until the 1970s.
Slated to be demolished in 1975, the local community came together to save the building. Greater Jamaica Development Corporation maintained the building as a new plan for its use as a performing arts center was developed by the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning. After almost two decades of renovations, the Jamaica Performing Arts Center opened its doors in 2009. The greatest accomplishment to date of the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning has been the transformation of this landmark building into a state-of-the-art, 400-seat theater.
Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning
Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning is a 38-year-old multidisciplinary urban arts center located in the diverse community of Southeast Queens. More than 28,000 people of all ages and backgrounds participate in our wide array of education, performing arts, and visual arts programs annually.
Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning was founded in 1972 as part of a large-scale effort to revitalize the declining Jamaica business district. Downtown Jamaica, like many neighborhoods across the United States, experienced a long period of decline in the 1960s. In 1967, local artists, business leaders and community members came together to restore the decaying commercial corridor along Jamaica Avenue. They acquired the abandoned Queens Register of Titles and Deeds Building – a New York landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places – and transformed it into an urban cultural center that would serve as a symbol of Jamaica’s reawakening and act as a magnet for businesses, shoppers, and residents returning to the downtown area.
Today, the Center’s neo-Renaissance building features a 1,650 square foot visual arts gallery, a 99-seat proscenium theater, painting, dance and ceramics studios and a newly renovated, soundproof music studio. Our programs for children, teens, and adults include a multicultural series of music, theater, and dance performances; film screenings and lectures; contemporary visual arts exhibitions; in-school artist residencies; a series of nearly 50 different arts workshops; and free or low-cost after-school and summer programs. In addition to on-site workshops and events, our pioneering alliance with nearby schools initiated one of the first Arts in Education programs in the country. This award-winning program has helped to establish the educational viability of collaborations between schools and community based organizations nationwide.