St. Patrick’s Day will be more joyful than ever this year at NYC’s Irish Arts Center. The Hell’s Kitchen cultural center will be celebrating its first St. Paddy’s Day in its brand new facility and it’s going to be one for the books.
The center had outgrown its three-story tenement at 553 West 51st Street, where it had been since the early 1970s, and has had to hold some of its events off site in recent years. The tight space only had 99 seats in its theater and really nowhere to welcome people in for conversation and that good old Irish hospitality.
In the words of Aidan Connolly, the center’s Executive Director, the space couldn’t house their ambitions.
But now, with an extra 21,700 square feet just around the corner on 11th Avenue, Irish hospitality, culture and festivity can blossom. With St. Patrick’s Day coming up next week, we got an in-depth tour of the new center and learned what having this new space means for its visitors and the community at large.
Here’s what you can expect when you visit:
When you walk into the Irish Arts Center, you’ll now be greeted by a gorgeous café and lounge with plush couches and chairs from Orior made with authentic Irish materials, including a bar counter that’s made from a century-old walnut tree. Yes, there’s beer on tap, but also bites and drinks by Hell’s Kitchen’s Ardesia. It’s so welcoming that you may want to sit for a couple of hours, but that’s the point.
“Irish hospitality is one stereotype we embrace,” Connolly tells us. “We encourage people to come early and stay late [to events].”
To amplify that it’s a space for comfort and conversation, the center’s Visual Arts program has a wall dedicated to displaying works of art in the café, as well as other walls and areas around the building, as another springboard for conversation.
Right now, a group exhibition called “The Space We Occupy” is on view in the café…