How Do You Raise $3.47 Billion? Ask These Guys

This is a moment of critical mass for culture in New York, and it looks both energizing and daunting. Sixteen arts institutions in Manhattan alone are in the process of raising more than $3 billion for projects from the ambitious (the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new wing for modern and contemporary works) to the more modest, but long awaited (the Irish Arts Center’s new Hell’s Kitchen home).

It’s the kind of boom that can be stirring for art fans, but that raises questions about how all this money can be raised simultaneously, particularly when foreign markets have created some financial uncertainty. It’s also not clear the city will continue to be as generous toward cultural capital projects as it was under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.