All Photos by Barry Mason
MOUNT VERNON, NY — The AC-BAW Center for the Arts celebrated its grand reopening and 50th anniversary on Saturday, September 19, 2026, marking a major milestone for one of Mount Vernon’s longest-standing cultural institutions and ushering in a new chapter for the arts in the city’s downtown.
The anniversary celebration featured a special benefit concert by Kevin Owens, whose performance included a soulful Motown medley and a tribute to the late Luther Vandross. Owens spent more than 25 years performing as a background vocalist with Vandross, bringing a personal connection to the tribute and an added sense of musical history to the evening.
The concert brought together artists, community members, supporters, and longtime friends of AC-BAW to celebrate not only the organization’s five decades of service, but the restoration of a space that has played an important role in Mount Vernon’s cultural life.
Located at 128 South 4th Avenue, the AC-BAW Center for the Arts has long provided a home for artists, musicians, performers, exhibitions, concerts, lectures, and community programming.
Fifty Years of Art and Community
The Association of Community-Based Artists of Westchester, Inc., known as AC-BAW, was founded in 1976 by Mount Vernon artists with a mission to bring art and cultural programming into communities that historically had limited access to such opportunities.
One of the organization’s earliest initiatives was Westchester Artists In The Streets, a summer arts program created to serve some of the county’s most underserved communities.
In 1980, AC-BAW rented an abandoned furniture store on Fourth Avenue and began transforming it into what would become an important cultural center in downtown Mount Vernon.
The organization entered into a collaborative effort with the City of Mount Vernon, local banks, and the Gannett Foundation, using arts and culture as part of a broader effort to support commercial redevelopment in the community.
The building’s renovation itself reflected AC-BAW’s community-based mission. High school dropouts participated in rebuilding the facility, helping turn a vacant commercial space into an arts institution. The gallery would later earn recognition as an arts critics’ choice for Gallery of the Year.
Over the decades, AC-BAW brought world-class exhibitions, concerts and lectures to downtown Mount Vernon while providing opportunities for local artists and creating a gathering place for creative expression.
The center came to be regarded by its supporters as the cultural heart and hope of downtown Mount Vernon.
Rebuilding the Center — Again
That history made Saturday’s grand reopening particularly significant.
Ahead of the 50th-anniversary celebration, the historic center underwent extensive renovations, with much of the restoration carried out through a volunteer-led effort. Supporters and community members worked by hand to rebuild and revitalize the facility so it could once again serve artists and residents.
In many ways, the effort echoed the spirit in which the original Fourth Avenue center was created decades ago — people coming together, investing their own labor and believing that arts and culture have a place in the redevelopment and future of Mount Vernon.
The reopening, therefore, represents more than the restoration of a building.
It represents the continuation of a vision that began in 1976: using art, culture and community engagement as tools for education, opportunity, economic development and neighborhood revitalization.
A New Chapter on the Avenue
As AC-BAW enters its next era, the organization is again looking toward partnerships with artists, schools, community organizations, arts patrons and the City of Mount Vernon to expand its cultural programming and strengthen its role downtown.
Its longtime vision of blending culture and commerce “On The Avenue” remains particularly relevant as Mount Vernon continues conversations about revitalizing its downtown business district.
Fifty years after a group of Mount Vernon artists first came together to create the Association of Community-Based Artists of Westchester, AC-BAW is still standing — and, following its restoration, once again opening its doors to the community.
Saturday’s celebration was both a tribute to what came before and a declaration that the story is not finished.
After 50 years of exhibitions, music, education, community building, and cultural advocacy, the AC-BAW Center for the Arts is beginning its next chapter in the heart of Mount Vernon.
All Photos by Barry Mason. Barry Mason is a photographer and painter living in Mount Vernon. He was educated at The Corcoran School of Art and Indiana State University. His commercial photography clients include: GE, L’Oreal, American Legacy Magazine. He has taught photography at Horace Mann School, ArtsWestchester, UJAMMA, and for many years worked at CBS Corporation.
