[3] After the group's proposal was turned down, artists including Muriel Castanis, Nancy Edelstein, Jan McDevitt, and Jacqueline Skiles staged a protest on October 27, 1970.

[1][9][10] In October 1971, the Center was registered with the state as a nonprofit corporation with a mission to "encourage and advance the development and expression of women's skills and creativity in all areas of the arts.

[12] In early 1972, the Center held a massive "open show" with works by celebrated painters such as Louise Nevelson, Faith Ringgold, and Mimi Schapiro, along with other well-known figures including Yoko Ono, Judy Chicago, and Kate Millett.

[2] Among the prominent visual artists who exhibited at the Interart Gallery, directed during this era by Francyne de St.-Amand,[6] were Ida Applebroog,[6][17] Gillian Ayres,[6][18] Martha Edelheit,[19] Howardena Pindell,[20] a young Sophie Rivera,[21] and Alice Neel, who participated in six shows in the mid-1970s.

[11] In the 1980s, JoAnne Akalaitis directed two acclaimed productions of the work of German playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz at the theater: Request Concert and, with her Mabou Mines group, Through the Leaves, which won four Obies.

[1][6][31][32] In the middle of the decade, Interart received a Drama Desk Special Award "for nurturing women theater artists" and Lewitin was similarly honored by the Dramatists Guild of America.

[46][47] Interdisciplinary works by Meredith Monk and Lee Nagrin were produced by the Center at venues such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, St. Mark's Church, and La MaMa.

[6][48][49] In the 1980s, the Center became increasingly involved in community efforts to resist attempts by the city and major developers to transform the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood—specifically, the six-square-block Clinton Urban Renewal Area (CURA)—through the construction of luxury highrises and eviction of arts groups.

In 1986, after four years of struggle, a community coalition with the Center at its heart defeated such a plan put forward by Ed Koch, New York's nominally "liberal" mayor.

"[50] The local coalition sponsored a community-conceived development plan for the CURA intended to preserve its mix of working-class residents, small businesses, and nonprofit cultural organizations.

[58] Following the organization's 2016 closure, Lewitin and painter Ronnie Geist, the Center's director of special projects, donated WIC's nearly half-century archive to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.