ARTS 14C grew from a single question posed in early 2018 by Robinson Holloway, then serving as inaugural Chair of the Jersey City Arts Council:
How could our local visual artists, arts organizations and galleries gain greater access to an art world that too often left them out?
The idea that emerged was Art Fair 14C — an art fair designed to create new opportunities for artists and galleries while giving the region’s art-loving public an exciting new way to discover their work. The name was a nod to its Jersey City roots: 14C is the New Jersey Turnpike exit for Jersey City.
The idea found an early champion in Mike DeMarco, then CEO of Mack-Cali Realty and Chair of the Exchange Place Alliance, who made the decision to provide a vital $50,000 in seed funding for the inaugural fair. That early vote of confidence helped turn an ambitious idea into something real.
But the Fair almost didn’t happen. In December 2018, the Jersey City Arts Council Board considered whether to cancel the project. The vote to move forward passed by a single vote, with the proviso that 14C split from the JCAC and become its own separate nonprofit in 2020.
In March of 2019, the first Art Fair 14C took over the top two floors of the Hyatt Regency Jersey City, with hotel rooms serving as exhibition booths, installations and salons. More than 4,000 visitors came. Forty-six exhibitors participated — many from New Jersey and New York, others from as far away as Russia and Brazil — along with a juried Showcase exhibition of 38 artists drawn from across New Jersey.
And that first weekend proved something important: there was an audience for this. And there were many more artists and arts organizations who needed the opportunity.
Almost immediately, the 14C team — a mighty trio of Robinson Holloway, Gretchen Von Koenig and Kristin DeAngelis — began looking beyond a once-a-year event.
After the first Fair, the team traveled to all 21 counties of New Jersey, visiting artist studios, galleries and arts organizations, discovering the extraordinary depth of talent across the state and spreading the word about Art Fair 14C.
Then came an unexpected interruption. The second Fair took place in February 2020, just weeks before the pandemic shut down cultural life. Planned post-Fair exhibitions were canceled, but the organization used the resources it had to begin something new: its first artist residency program at ART150, on the second floor of 150 Bay Street.
In 2021, 14C offered two six-month residencies, deliberately designed for artists who could face particular barriers to accessing traditional residency opportunities: one for an artist with a disability and one for an artist who had recently earned an MFA. The inaugural residents were Danielle Scott and Jonte’ Drew, respectively. Both artists were exhibited at the 3rd Edition of Art Fair 14C in November 2021.
It became a pattern. One program led to another.
The residencies led to exhibitions in the second-floor main gallery, which would become Gallery 14C. The Art Crawl began in 2022, connecting artist studios and galleries with local businesses and new audiences. Access 14C began with low-sensory tours of Art Fair 14C and expanded to include programming for blind and visually impaired visitors.
Gallery 14C created another way to champion artists throughout the year and, eventually, to take their work beyond New Jersey, including exhibitions during Miami Art Week.
By 2023, 14C was also operating the Jersey City Art & Studio Tour (JCAST) and helping bring together Art Fair 14C, JCAST, Mana Open Studios and the International Sculpture Center conference into what became an informal Jersey City Art Week.
What had started as an art fair was becoming something much larger.
In late 2023, an opportunity arrived that changed the scale of everything.
Three floors of 150 Bay Street — built out as university dormitories but left empty after Alliance University closed — became available, and building owner Jeffrey Gural was interested in hearing ideas about how to fill the space.
The idea: transform the dormitories into an arts incubator, multidisciplinary artist residency and creative community.
Within a day of being approached about the space, a proposal was drafted for a live/work program centered on mentorship, professional development and artists of multiple disciplines. The core of the Project 14C residency program still follows that original idea.
The opportunity also made something else clear. Art Fair 14C was no longer the organization. It was now one program among many.
So in spring of 2024, ARTS 14C was created as the umbrella nonprofit for the expanding family of 14C programs.
On January 1, 2025, ARTS 14C took over 125,000 square feet at 150 Bay Street. A month later, resident artists began moving into Project 14C.
The space includes 72 loft studios, nine studio apartments and extensive areas for arts programming.
For the first time, the organization had not simply created another opportunity for artists.
It had created a place where opportunities could happen every day.
ARTS 14C has never grown according to a fixed blueprint.
Programs have emerged because artists needed them, because audiences responded to them, or because an unexpected opportunity was simply too good to ignore.
Today, visual artists work alongside dancers, performers, writers, filmmakers, musicians and artists working across disciplines. Exhibitions, open studios, performances and public programs invite audiences into that community.
And the same idea that launched Art Fair 14C still sits at the center of everything we do:
Increase opportunities for artists. Expand public access to art. Strengthen careers in the arts. Activate under-recognized arts areas.
The scale has changed dramatically. The purpose hasn’t.