Arts Community Mourns the Passing of Peggy Amsterdam
The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance sorrowfully announces the passing of its president, Peggy Amsterdam. She died peacefully at home on December 26, surrounded by family and friends. Amsterdam established a new vision for the Cultural Alliance, focusing on arts and culture as a unifying force for the region. Among her many accomplishments were preventing the elimination of Philadelphia’s cultural funding in 2004. In 2008 Amsterdam worked with the Mayor's office to re-establish the City of Philadelphia's Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy. Most recently, she led a statewide coalition to defeat a proposed “arts tax” that would have expanded the state sales tax to include cultural organizations. She was also instrumental in establishing long-term stabilization funding for the arts in the state of Delaware during her role as the Director of Delaware’s Division of the Arts in 1993.