Laurie Cumbo has walked in the footsteps of New York City’s museum leaders

When Laurie Cumbo pitched her budget to build Brooklyn’s first museum of contemporary African art in 1998, she estimated the cost to be a whopping $18 million. Coming up with the idea as a master’s student at New York University, she was envisioning a world-class institution. After all, she had already interned at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Children’s Museum and the Brooklyn Museum.

Like other young people with a grand vision, Cumbo said the reality was that “the universe sent me on a longer journey that was far more beautiful.”

There was no $18 million check waiting for her to start the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts. She shopped the project around for months to donors and local elected officials. The result was a $5,000 state grant from then-Assembly Member Al Vann, an icon in Black Brooklyn politics.

“I was pretty pissed,” Cumbo said about how much money she raised compared to her goal, “but my dad had a friend that went to a local church, and they had a space over a brownstone.”

In a fourth floor walk-up, MoCADA got its humble beginnings. “I was like, I don’t want to take the attic space at the top of a Head Start program, like, I’m trying to build a multimillion-dollar state of the art museum,” Cumbo said.

But her father gave her good advice.

“My father was like, ‘Just get started,’” Cumbo said. “‘Just do it, see what happens.’ So we got started.”

At the grand opening at 281 Stuyvesant Ave. in 1999, all the major local politicians at the time showed up: Vann, state Sen. Marty Markowitz and Assembly Member Roger Green. As they packed the small space with older members of the community, Cumbo and her team placed chairs at each of the stairwell landings so guests could rest on their way upstairs.

Inspired by Camille Cosby’s Spelman College Museum of Fine Art at her alma mater, Cumbo worked to create a space in Brooklyn for emerging African American artists.

MoCADA did eventually find a more suitable home at the James E. Davis Arts Building at 80 Hanson Place near Atlantic Terminal.

But for Cumbo, these early ups and downs and experience founding an arts institution laid the path for a political career that would continuously cross paths with the arts. From representing Central Brooklyn in the New York City Council to now serving as commissioner of the city Department of Cultural Affairs, Cumbo has been at the center of key city budget fights, landmark policymaking and decisions on how to dole out hundreds of millions of dollars.

And her experience founding MoCADA and getting through the struggles of those early years sets her apart from previous commissioners.

“Some of the conversations with her were unique from a lot of other government officials who may understand and appreciate the work that you’re doing, but she has literally walked in our footsteps herself before,” said Eduardo Castell, board chair of jazz nonprofit Belongó.

Making her mark in the council

After a decade of teaching masters students at the Pratt Institute while running MoCADA, Cumbo had become close with advocates and members of Brooklyn’s arts and cultural scene.

“So many people had been saying, ‘You should run for office, you should run for office,’” Cumbo said. “And I started to think about it, but the main thing that inspired me to run was that I had been fighting for arts funding.”

In 2013, she succeeded Letitia James in City Council District 35, which includes Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant, after a five-way Democratic primary and an uncontested general election.As one of 11 women in the 51-member City Council and later as majority leader, Cumbo led on a number of bills, including one creating the Mayor’s Office to Prevent Gun Violence, another establishing the Office of Crime Victim Services and doubling the budget of the Percent for Art Program.

Former New York City Council Member Robert Cornegy Jr., a frequent collaborator with Cumbo, said her experience growing up in East Flatbush amid gun violence was a potent motivator for her advocacy.

As Women’s Issues Committee chair, she worked on pay parity for day care workers and the implementation of universal prekindergarten.

“When you’re part of the 11, you have to work double time to be on more committees than your male counterparts, because you always want to have a woman’s voice at the table,” Cumbo said. “There were so few of us that on average, someone might serve on three or four committees because we wanted to be at the hearings and we wanted to have a voice.”

Cumbo expanded her platform to housing justice and tenants’ rights, and as she fought for safer and more equitable communities, Cumbo found ways to intertwine politics with art.

From expanding the Summer Youth Employment Program to giving underserved youth artistic outlets, she joined the fight to include the Weeksville Heritage Center among the city’s Cultural Institution Group. In 2019, the center became the first Black Brooklyn institution in the group – a major accomplishment since it guarantees significant city funding, ensuring the center’s continued operations for future generations.

“Laurie Cumbo was very vocal in the importance of drawing attention to the importance of Black history in Brooklyn,” said Raymond Codrington, president and CEO of the Weeksville Heritage Center. “To have that story and that narrative (become) a part of a broader city cultural and historical narrative, to be included among the 34 (Cultural Institution Groups) is very important. It’s a history that is as much about Brooklyn as it is about New York, as it is about America. That notion hat free Black people took it by themselves to deliberately build a community 11 years after the abolition of slavery in New York state.”

As a council member, Cumbo maintained relationships with the city’s cultural and community-based organizations – partnerships which would later help her lead the Department of Cultural Affairs.

Elevating the outer boroughs

When Cumbo was selected to lead the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs by Mayor Eric Adams in 2022, she was lumped in with other controversial loyalists hired by the mayor.

When asked if she felt fairly treated by the press as a City Council member, Cumbo said her true intentions were often buried.

“I’m a creative and I’m artistic,” Cumbo said. “These ‘controversies’ are more so the direct result of coming from a creative place and not speaking in the same language as political people do. So I’ve had to really learn to adjust to communicating in sound bites.”

Yet since becoming commissioner, some of her vocal critics have changed their views. Luis Miranda, board chair of The Public Theater and father of “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, had publicly admonished Cumbo in 2021 for her opposition to a noncitizen voting bill. Working with Cumbo now, Miranda vouches for her dedication to the arts.

“She’s been a real advocate for the arts – for people to realize that the arts need real financial support, that you should not expect corporations, foundations or lovers of the arts to fund the arts in New York, that the government has a real role in making sure they finance them,” Miranda said.

Cumbo has focused on elevating smaller cultural organizations in the outer boroughs, which tend to depend more heavily on government assistance. 

“For Laurie, it’s not just about the big art institutions in Manhattan. Those are important – they’re anchors that bring tourists into the city,” Miranda said. “When she supports small theaters and art institutions everywhere in Brooklyn, in the Bronx, we have to applaud that because of her vision of the arts, it’s that they are displayed in whichever form throughout the city of New York.”

While the big Manhattan arts organizations have deep donor pools and are economic engines for the city by drawing in tourists and filling local hotels, smaller arts organizations also partner with the department to offer after-school programs or other activities geared toward New Yorkers in a way that honors the city’s diversity.

“It is in producing art that we uplift the communities that come into our doors,” said Atiba Edwards, president and CEO of Brooklyn Children’s Museum. “It’s really great to see arts and culture that reflects them, because it’s almost reaffirming in many ways. To be frank, it feels good. When I go into some art museums and I see artwork made by Black artists, it feels good to see that level of recognition. So it helps to uplift the amazing things that are happening that sometimes get lost.”

And much like Rudy Giuliani was swayed to fund the arts as New York City mayor because of the industry’s economic impact, Cumbo has also talked about the cultural sector’s workforce and making the arts a centerpiece of quality of life in all five boroughs.

“Manhattan was always considered the ‘living room’ and the other boroughs were considered the ‘bedroom’ to Manhattan,” Cumbo said. “We’re changing that. We’re creating a city where you can go to a world-class, state-of-the-art museum, libraries, zoos and gardens right in your own backyard.”

Prioritizing arts funding

This year’s biggest city budget story was Adams’ proposed cuts to libraries and arts organizations.

Cumbo’s strong negotiating secured the department’s record $254 million budget in fiscal year 2025 and restored $53 million in cuts to cultural funding.

“I’m always going to give the mayor a headache in wanting more funding for the arts,” Cumbo said. “I’m always going to stress him out. I’m always going to make his life difficult. But in the end, he hears what I have to say, and he continues to pass record breaking budgets year after year, and no matter how much he allocates to the arts, guess what, I’m always going to want more.”

Following the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on arts institutions, she has played a key role in their economic recovery over the past couple years.

“In some senses (we) were lucky to have Laurie Cumbo as commissioner, because on the front end, when the Adams administration first started, we got a very healthy budget,” said Adrien Benepe, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. “I guess it was clear to us that she had made the case to the mayor as to why funding the arts was important, and funding culture was important. And even when we had these pretty tough cuts this year, we know that the commissioner was working behind the scenes.”

She has increased the budget for the Cultural After School Adventures Initiative for City Council members to partner with local schools on after-school programming. Cumbo intends to expand the department’s Public Artists in Residence program, which is a municipal residency program that places an artist in a city government agency to provide a different perspective on pressing civic challenges. Plus, she is working to expand a program to place art on long-term scaffolding and fences.

In continuing with her advocacy for the recognition of notable women, the commissioner is moving forward the She Built NYC program, which has been delayed for years, to create monuments honoring women like former Rep. Shirley Chisolm, Billie Holiday, Elizabeth Jennings Graham, Dr. Helen Rodríguez Trías and Katherine Walker.

Several museum heads and cultural leaders agreed that Cumbo’s understanding of the art world positions her as an effective spokesperson.

“I think she just gets it,” said KP Trueblood, president and COO of The Brooklyn Museum. “She’s intimately familiar with all of the challenges that come with running an arts and culture organization. I think that comes from a place of deep understanding of the industry, the challenges that leaders face, and really wanting to partner with us.”

It is that lifetime of hands-on experience that sets Cumbo apart from previous commissioners who ran already established institutions. Her mother was one of the original employees at Lincoln Center when it opened and her father took her to jazz concerts and nightclubs in the city. She went to the Met Gala as an intern at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and got engaged on the Met Gala’s red carpet in 2022. Now, she’s nurturing this appreciation in her son, Prince, who often accompanies her at events.

In an interview with City & State, Cumbo talked about how hard it was to start MoCADA on very little money, saying she “would never be able to articulate that level of sacrifice, humiliation and adversity because it’s so personal.” And that experience has resonated with arts leaders and helped shape how she leads the Department of Cultural Affairs.

Cumbo said: “When I’m allocating capital dollars and reading proposals and understanding what they want to do, it’s really powerful to be able to give someone that experience to realize their dream and the dream of their community, of their people.”