Newly appointed New York City Cultural Affairs Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl. Photo credit: Byron Smith/New York Times

The president and executive director of the Queens Museum, Tom Finkelpearl, was appointed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to serve as the city's next cultural affairs commissioner. As cultural affairs commissioner, Mr. Finkelpearl will oversee a $156 million budget and will serve as the leading public figure on the arts in the city often described as the cultural capital of the world.

Partners worked closely with the museum and Mr. Finkelpearl on the museum's The Heart of Corona Initiative, helping the museum transform itself into a frontline public health resource within the Corona neighborhood that the museum has called home since its founding in 1972. In 2005, the museum set out to "exert the same sort of imagination, experimentation, and resources to community engagement as in the galleries".

The museum began offering health clinics for its neighbors, many of whom live on low incomes, providing an important health resource while also bringing new and largely non-traditional patrons inside the museum.

Mr. Finkelpearl told the New York Times of the philosophy he will take into the new post, “People are thirsty for the arts everywhere,” he said. “When you see kids learning the violin in Corona, you realize that these are families that might have all kinds of challenges, but they believe in the power of art.”

Read more: Museum Director to Be Commissioner of Cultural Affairs (New York Times)