Giorno Poetry Systems (GPS) was founded in 1965 by the artist, poet, and activist John Giorno (1936–2019), with a mission of supporting other artists, poets, and musicians, and was a force in the cultural and activist landscape in New York for decades. In 2023, it came back to life with a new team and program, a renewed sense of purpose, and a commitment to supporting a new generation of artists, poets, and musicians. GPS models a spirit of peer-to-peer exchange that centers the artist’s point of view—artists, poets, and musicians curate the events, they select tracks for the record label, they jury the grants, and their voices are heard on each Dial-A-Poem phone line. GPS is headquartered in downtown Manhattan at 222 Bowery, a landmarked building that once provided a studio to Mark Rothko, Lynda Benglis, or William Burroughs. GPS produces lectures, concerts, screenings, and salons; a record label features compilations selected by artists; a small grant program is juried by a rotating group of artists, poets, and musicians from the LBGTQ+ community; and Dial-A-Poem phone lines established around the world decenter the English language and provide access to poets and activists speaking in the language native to their country.

222 Bowery is a co-op, and GPS occupies only part of the building. The scoping grant will allow GPS to present the building's other co-op members with an assessment and feasibility study of what would be necessary to improve the efficiency of the building as a whole. This investment of time and resources would signal GPS's intention to be an active collaborator in imagining a future for the building, and would also lay the groundwork for a proposal to use other units for programming.