Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning

Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning is a multidisciplinary urban arts center located in the diverse community of Southeast Queens. More than 35,000 people of all ages and backgrounds participate in our wide array of education, performing arts, and visual arts programs annually. JCAL 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, three painting and three dance studios, a ceramics studio, a computer lab, and a newly renovated 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. Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning (JCAL) receives ongoing operating support from the Mayor's Office, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Programmatic support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Queens Delegation of the New York City Council, and Councilman I. Daneek Miller. Foundation support from Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Corporate support from the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation, and many individuals and volunteers.