Mission Statement

The Street Music Archives at Cornell Tech acquires and preserves music and instruments from New York City Street Performers. The archive will tell the journey through the gift of music by local artists to fulfill, create and promote happiness, and bring joy to the community they serve. The archive will serve and be accessible to all visitors from a diverse community of music lovers.

Scope

The current collection sustains visibility to current performing street musicians within New York City. The Street Music Archives will feature a wide range of instruments, recordings, articles, periodicals, news coverage, and documents that promote the livelihood of music. The annual exhibit consists of donations provided by the performers, as well as sound and video recordings submitted by fans and onlookers. In addition to the exhibit, we have an on-site storage area that holds objects that aren't currently being exhibited.

Cornell University has six campuses worldwide that are dedicated to the arts. Our rotating collections are housed at each of our archival libraries for ten months. Every January and February, the entire institution disassembles, ships, curates, and sets up the exhibits at our campuses. Every seventh year we will receive six new exhibits and archives for institutional use and public viewing. We collect a small nominal fee from the general public to keep our daily operations afloat, which enables the maintenance of materials, safety and security, insurance, temperature controlled settings, and annual location transfers within our university.

The collection has been transferred from our main campus, Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. The Olin Library is a massive library which contains information from all disciplines and caters to all students, faculty, and staff members of Cornell University.

In total, there are three genres that are in contained soundproof listening rooms and with a showcase of instruments, videos, photos, and/or interviews, that can accommodate up to twenty visitors at a time. Each room exhibits one hour of music for the enjoyment of sound. Our tour lasts approximately four hours and starts promptly every hour.

In conjunction with the Cornell Tech Library Services and Research, Fine Arts Department and Music Department of Cornell Tech, and Cornell University, the archive will operate to enrich our students, researchers, faculty, and staff Tuesday and Wednesday between the hours of 10am-8pm. The archives will be open to the general public every Thursday and Friday during the hours of 10am-5pm and Saturday by appointment. The archive will operate with a full-time curator, part-time staff members, interns, and volunteers.