A mural series in Newburgh City Court shows 400 years of the city's evolution. 

"There were 10 windows that needed to be bricked up. Well, instead of bricking it up at the cost of $15,000 each, we spent half that much money commissioning the story of the the history of Newburgh," said Newburgh Arts and Cultural Commission member and Orange County Arts Council Board President Stuart Sachs.      

It's a project commissioned by Newburgh's Arts and Cultural Commission, an organization that helped bring public art into the city through grants and the 1 Percent For the Arts program.

"Percent For the Arts is a program whereby 1 percent of a municipal construction project or a construction project on land conveyed by the municipality that was 1 percent of that construction project is actually done by an art contractor instead of a general contractors. So instead of adding to the cost of construction, it actually incorporates art into the actual construction," said Sachs. 

The commission was suspended in 2009, but there's a strong push to bring it back by art enthusiasts. That includes former commission member, Mayor Torrance Harvey.

"We are a multicultural city, and an urban city at that, and art and cultural is at the very hearbeat of America, it's the very heartbeat of what we do in the city of Newburgh," Harvey said.

The city council recently appointed 11 people to the Arts and Cultural Commission. An advisor says there's still some blanks to be filled in, like a director to oversee percent for the arts projects like it previously had.

"There's juries, there's public call for proposals, then the proposals need to be reviewed, juried, and then the whole project needs to be managed. So it needs to be done professionally," said Sachs.

But there's a sense of optimism about the commission's revival.

"An Art and Cultural Commission will serve in multiple capacities to enhance and also to help us revitalize and assist us in this renaissance that's happening," said Harvey.