New Urban Arts

[4] In 1998, Tyler Denmead was awarded a prestigious Echoing Green Fellowship to launch New Urban Arts as a nonprofit, and he became the first executive director.

In 2011, New Urban Arts announced a capital campaign and purchased, renovated, and moved to its current space at 705 Westminster Street.

"[20] Another national award came in 2008 (followed by renewals in 2013 and 2018) when the Rhode Island Department of Education named New Urban Arts a 21st Century Community Learning Center.

In a recent book, The Creative Underclass: Youth, Race and the Gentrifying City, founding director Tyler Denmead provides an ethnography of New Urban Arts in the beginning of the twentieth century and ties student expectations to local and national public policy initiatives.

[25] Staff and mentors have written hands-on essays, most recently Deputy Director Emily Ustach who describes “Flexibility and Fidelity in a Drop-In, After School Art Studio Program” in Afterschool Matters.