IMLS Building Capacity workshop for NYC museum participants at Fraunces Tavern Museum on August 11. Photo by Alex Cassetti

 

Dear Members, Friends and Supporters,

I was recently in a city that had their bus schedules on scrolling LED boards in their bus shelters. As I waited for my route to be posted, the LED board began flashing on and off with the words “ARRIVAL IS UNPREDICTABLE.” The other folks in the bus shelter gave me side glances as I burst out loud laughing. It seemed a metaphor for my state of mind as I once again masked up to meet the world safely.

If there is anything that I hope we can take away from the past 18 months of fighting this world health crisis is that we can’t predict what will happen. We can only be as prepared as possible for change and adapt. One of my favorite quotes from the poet Maya Angelou is “You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been.” 

We know where we have been this last year and a half, and I was heartbroken when I had to tie a mask on again. I know I am not alone feeling stuck in a time machine. We continue our plans to gather safely in small groups this fall. We will be wearing masks and will be following protocols set by the museums in which we will be meeting. In NYC, that will require proof of vaccination. 

We look forward to seeing you in person and gathering safely, with masks, until this pandemic becomes endemic and our lives become a little more predictable.

 

With best wishes for the last days for summer,

 

Erika Sanger

Executive Director

Founded in the 1970s by preservationists from across New York State, the primary goal for the Preservation League of NYS was to ensure that preservation had a centralized voice for the entire state. Today, Preserve NYS works with individuals, organizations, and municipalities to support historic preservation projects and strategically invests in rehabilitation projects through two signature grant programs Preserve New York (PNY) and Technical Assistance Grants (TAG). 

Preserve NYS

“A big part of our mission is helping to influence policy that ensures that historic preservation always has a seat at the table, especially when it comes to economic development,” said Janna Rudler, Grants and Technical Services Manager. “The League’s mission goes beyond advocacy though… we champion projects that show the essential role of preservation and community revitalization, sustainable economic growth, protection of our historic buildings, and historic landmarks.

Preserve NYS supports its mission through a number of programs  including technical services, educational programs, outreach, webinars, and working with colleague organizations like municipalities or local preservation groups such as Preservation Association of the Southern Tier (PAST), Preservation Association of Central New York (PACNY), Preservation Buffalo Niagara, and Preservation Long Island. “We work with our colleagues across the state to make sure that they are empowering people in their communities to help save their historic buildings,” said Rudler.

The Seward House Museum in Auburn, NY received a $10,000 PNY grant in 2019. Photo courtesy of Preservation League of NYS

There is also an Excellence in Historic Preservation Awards program that highlights projects, organizations, publications, and individuals that exemplify best practices in historic preservation. Awards are considered based on level of statewide significance, impact on underrepresented communities or overlooked history, effective solutions to current preservation issues, degree of difficulty faced, level of impact on the community, region or state, display of collaborative efforts, and design sensitivity to the historic character and fabric of the property. Previous award winners include the Graycliff-Isabelle Martin House, NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Albany Housing Authority’s rehabilitation of houses in Albany’s South End and Arbor Hill neighborhoods, including providing administrative space for the Albany County Historical Association.

Grant Opportunities

Preserve New York (PNY)

Preserve New York provides grant funding for historic structure reports, building condition reports, cultural landscape reports, and cultural resource surveys. Applicants must be a unit of local government or a non-profit organization with tax-exempt status. 

Grants made provide support for up to 80% of the total project cost; usually between $3,000 and $10,000.

Technical Assistance Grants (TAG)

Technical Assistance Grants provide support for consulting projects that will preserve cultural and historic resources. TAG supports professional services including architects, engineers, and other preservation specialists working with non-profit organizations and municipalities to preserve their buildings, structures, and other resources that serve an arts and/or cultural function. 

Grants are up to $4,000 with a required 20% project cost match. 

“Both grant programs focus on preservation planning,” said Rudler. “These are grants that help provide technical assistance and guidance on saving buildings. Both grants are intended to pay consultant costs to produce studies that help an organization see its way forward with their building if they’re not sure where to begin.” Rudler also said that these grant programs are helpful to organizations that know that something needs to be restored or preserved but are not sure who to contact. “Preserve NY can provide an architect or engineer that has a preservation background who can ensure any work done will preserve the historic integrity of the building.”

The Cayuga Museum of History and Art was awarded $3,920 in TAG funding in 2021 for its Willard-Case Mansion and Carriage House roof investigation. Photo courtesy of Preservation League of NYS

TAG was launched in 2012 to support specific projects that preserve NYS cultural and historic structures. “Our Technical Assistance Grants are a little smaller in terms of awards and they cover discrete projects relating to buildings and looking at specific issues,” said Rudler. “For instance, building condition surveys that look at a particular condition that a building is facing like windows or roofs.”

Buildings do not have to be listed on the State or National Register of Historic Places to qualify for either grant program but the review panel does consider the architectural and/or historical significance of the building as part of the application evaluation process. 

Both grants are partnership grants. “Our primary funder for these grants is the New York State Council on the Arts,” said Rudler. “NYSCA partners with us because they want to provide money for historic preservation but they like having the professional, vetting, and oversight that the Preservation League provides.”

The Preservation League of NYS also received funding from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation to support non-profit organizations on Long Island. “The Gardiner Foundation has supported PNY grants since 2017 but in 2020 they began providing funding for TAG for Long Island.” In addition, TAG also receives support from the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area (Hudson River Greenway). 

“These preservation planning grants can help leverage larger capital grants down the road,” said Rudler. “For example, if you’re applying to the Environmental Protection Fund or through the NYS Consolidated Funding Application, having a Preservation League grant funded preservation study done first can give you a leg up because the state will see that you have done the preparation. So our grants have helped a lot of organizations. They start with a Preservation League grant and the resulting document and guidance helps them fundraise, apply for other grants, and lends credibility to their project.”

2021 PNY Grant Recipient–The Science Museum of Long Island’s Norwood House & Carriage House, Photo courtesy of Preservation League of NYS

In 2021, 32 applicants in 25 counties received a total of $297,996 in Preserve New York grants. Grant funded projects include a historic landscape report at Quarry Farm on the outskirts of Elmira, a building condition report for the Charlotte-Genesee Lighthouse Historical Society–built in 1882 and the oldest surviving lighthouse on Lake Ontario, and the Science Museum of Long Island’s Norwood House & Carriage House, and Leeds Pond Preserve. The building condition report helped inform and reorganize building space use, catalyzed preservation and restoration capital projects, and supported their plans to integrate the Leeds Pond Preserve into a museum campus. 

Advice for Prospective Applicants

“The first thing that I like to tell people is that our grants are fairly easy to apply to,” said Rudler. “We’re guided by the NYSCA application process but our process is a little more streamlined because these grants are so specific.” Preserve NYS also offers webinars to learn more about what the grants fund, what kind of eligibility is required, and general application tips. There are also a series of help sessions offered over Zoom that provide one on one help. 

“We really like to provide a lot of support along the way. These grants are often the first grants that an organization applies for because they are the basis for larger grants later on.” Preserve NYS also provides a list of consultants that successfully completed grant-funded projects. “Applicants can access this list and that can help them choose the right consultant, especially if they don’t know where to start.”

Pre-applications are now open for the 2021 Technical Assistance grants. 

Pre-application is required to determine eligibility. Please review the TAG grant guidelines before completing the pre-application. 

Pre-application deadline: Monday, October 11, 2021

Grant application deadline: Friday, October 15, 2021

Learn more about the Preservation League of NYS grant opportunities: https://www.preservenys.org/grants

Learn more about previously funded projects: https://www.preservenys.org/pny-recipients 

At Watkins Glen, Tim Caza (L) and Dennis Gerber (R) deploy one of the RV Voyager's two side-scan-sonar survey units in preparation for examining the lake bottom in that area.

Through underwater exploration, The Seneca Lake Archaeological and Bathymetric* Survey Project aims to preserve the history of New York’s Canals. The project uses state of the art equipment to capture never before seen images of intact Canal shipwrecks from the early 19th century discovered in the deepest parts of the lake. 

This research project is a collaboration between the New York Power Authority, NYS Canal Corporation, NYS Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historical Preservation, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, NYS Museum, the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Middlebury College, the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, and the Finger Lakes Boating Museum  where it will inform future interpretive plans. 

The Seneca Lake Archaeological and Bathymetric Survey Project is occurring under permit through the NYS Museum and all remains and artifacts of the vessels discovered are the property of the State of New York.

*Bathymetry is the measurement of the depth of water in oceans, rivers, or lakes. Bathymetric maps look a lot like topographic maps, which use lines to show the shape and elevation of land features. On topographic maps, the lines connect points of equal elevation. On bathymetric maps, they connect points of equal depth. –National Geographic

The Project

Art Cohn is the project’s principal investigator and scholar. He began conducting underwater archaeological surveys on Lake Champlain where he partnered with the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. His focus turned to the Erie Canal and the Finger Lakes after working with NYS Canal Corporation and the Corning Museum of Glass’ 2018 GlassBarge project that commemorated the 150th anniversary of the Brooklyn Flint Glass Company relocating to Corning via New York’s waterways in 2018. Cohn and the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum invited people aboard the Lois McClure that towed the GlassBarge to learn about what life was like on board a 19th century canal barge.  Cohn also created an educational booklet for the project. This experience ignited his ideas about the Seneca Lake shipwrecks. 

Survey specialist Tim Caza prepares the Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) to be sent to record a shipwreck in the deep waters of Seneca Lake.  

“In the booklet that I put together at the request of the Corning Museum of Glass, I teased the shipwreck story… by looking at Seneca Lake and what lies beneath,” said Cohn. “In doing this research we’ve gotten a little glimpse at the amount of activity on the lake.t is hard to appreciate that kind of work today with all the beautiful vineyards, but this was a hardworking canal-related waterway with many canal boats doing the work of today's interstate highways and tractor trailers.” Through his research and experience underwater mapping Lake Champlain, Cohn knew that there were cultural resources submerged in Seneca Lake. “I was convinced that Seneca Lake had the potential to produce a number of early canal shipwrecks and if we hit the grand slam we might even find a packet boat, the missing link in canal boat types archaeologically speaking. The wonderful incentive is that we are in the bicentennial period and the Buffalo Maritime Center is building one using what we know about construction 200 years ago with artwork and descriptions of packet boats for reference. Before now, we had never located an archaeological example.” The discoveries from the project come at the same time as an ongoing State-supported replica construction of the Seneca Chief, Governor DeWitt Clinton’s 1825 Canal packet boat, at Buffalo’s Canalside Longshed Building. On October 26, 1825 Governor Clinton journeyed from Buffalo to New York City on the Seneca Chief carrying two wooden barrels of Lake Erie water. Eight days later, he arrived at New York City and emptied the water into the Atlantic Ocean to marry the waters as a symbol of the importance of this canal.

The Erie Canal at Salina Street in Syracuse NY c. 1900. Library of Congress 

Packet boats traveled east and west along the Erie Canal from the Hudson River to the Great Lakes. Even before the Erie Canal was completed in 1825, these passenger carrying packet boats began operating on the newly completed sections of the canal. Packet boats provided a smooth and speedy alternative to the stagecoaches operating on the often rough road systems until railroads began offering passenger service. Most packet boats fell out of use before the invention of photography and most of what is known of their design comes from paintings and illustrations. 

Expeditions since 2018 have uncovered 17 vessels in their studies of Seneca Lake including what is believed to be the first-ever identified intact remains of a canal packet boat dating back to the early 1800s. “It doesn’t often happen quite that well,” said Cohn. “It’s a great reaffirmation that New York waters contain submerged cultural resources. We as a society need to know that, inventory them, protect them, learn from them, and preserve them for the next generation.”

Finger Lakes Boating Museum

The project originally included the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, but as the dynamics of the project shifted towards Seneca Lake and the Finger Lakes region, Cohn began thinking about where he wanted to center this phase “Where do we want to interpret what we find, where would you want to build the education programs, where would you want to start the exhibition design and it’s a Finger Lakes project,” said Cohn. Cohn searched for a Finger Lakes museum partner. 

Outside the Finger Lakes Boating Museum in Hammondsport, NY

“Art Cohn came to the museum a couple of years ago to give a talk about his underwater studies and told me that he was planning on relocating to the Finger Lakes region to start mapping underwater wrecks,” said Finger Lakes Boating Museum Executive Director Andrew Tompkins. The Finger Lakes Boating Museum agreed to serve as the administrative hub and fiscal sponsor for the survey project.

The Finger Lakes Boating Museum has over 200 boats in their collection built in the region   between the early 1900s to the 1960s. The museum moved into the historic former Taylor Wine Company just outside the village of Hammondsport in 2014, to a 14 acre campus with 18 buildings. Tompkins saw this partnership as an opportunity for the museum to expand its interpretation.

“Cohn brings a lot of expertise and this would be a completely different aspect to our museum,” said Tompkins. “It would help us expand from just pleasure crafts as well as bringing recognition to our museum. This research could bring in an entirely new thing about boating in the Finger Lakes for our museum to interpret in terms of these underwater wrecks and the underwater canal boats,” said Tompkins. “It’s something we’ve never really focused on before. The museum has a steam boat room where we interpret how steamboats pulled canal boats into the canal system but we’ve never really focused on canal boats.” Tompkins noted that there just aren’t a lot of canal boats left anymore. “What we have are small, hand built, scaled models. So to be part of this project is so important.” In addition to being the project’s administrative hub and fiscal sponsor, the Finger Lakes Boating Museum will also house the space to interpret the project. 

Inside the Finger Lakes Boating Museum

“I was impressed with the level of enthusiasm at the Finger Lakes Boating Museum,” said Cohn. “They’re kind of an up and coming museum and are doing the hard work to make the museum sustainable and looking towards the future.” Tompkins is the only paid full time staff person at the museum, but is working with the museum’s board to develop a plan on what kind of staff will be needed to accomplish these goals. The museum is also looking at plans and ideas of how the museum campus will look in the future. Some buildings are already undergoing renovation including a new visitor’s center that is expected to open next spring. Tompkins envisions that at least one building will be devoted to the project.

“We’re on board to help Art and this project and are excited to bring more recognition to the museum and bring a whole new aspect to our interpretation.” 

NYS Canal Corporation and the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor

One key goal of this project is to use the discoveries made during this exploration to enhance future curriculum and educational material for students learning about the Erie Canal and the State’s Canal system. 

The NYS Canal Corporation in partnership with the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor hopes to develop a series of educational resources working with teachers from school districts throughout the Finger Lakes region for NYS teachers and students in grades 6-12.

“This is an exciting moment in the storied history of our State’s Canal system as we discover and further document these new artifacts,” said NYS Canal Corporation Director Brian U. Stratton. “The underwater research done in Seneca Lake will educate future generations and will also entice travelers to visit the Canal system to experience it for what it really is – a scenic waterway that tells the story of how New York emerged as the Empire State, and how our nation’s westward expansion was made possible.”

“This collaborative effort is another example of how our extraordinary Canal heritage continues to be part of understanding and solving today’s challenges,” said Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor Executive Director Bob Radliff. “We are excited to partner with the New York Power Authority, Canal Corporation, and Art Cohn and his research team, along with numerous Finger Lakes schools, to develop Next Generation learning opportunities.” 

Future

Researchers will continue their work through this fall and in the years ahead on Cayuga and Keuka Lakes. Cohn’s findings will help teach the public about the Erie Canal’s past during its bicentennial celebration that runs through 2025. The discovered vessels, many covered in zebra mussels, are described by Cohn as time capsules and informers of the past. “If you don’t share it with the public then you’re not doing your job,” said Cohn. “A big part of my job is to figure out  the many different ways I can make this information available.” Cohn’s findings are already being shared at free public lectures throughout the Finger Lakes this summer and at the Finger Lakes Boating Museum and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology. 

For Cohn and this project, partnerships have been essential. “The more ways we can develop the information that can be utilized by organizations and institutions to help share a body of knowledge with the public then we’re going to do that as best we can.”

Learn more about this project: https://americancanalsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Seneca_Lake_Survey_2019_ONLINE_VERSION.pdf 

Learn more about the Finger Lakes Boating Museum: https://www.flbm.org/

Hart Cluett Museum was one of ten museums selected from across the nation to participate in the Smithsonian Institute Traveling Exhibition Services’ (SITES) pilot program for “The Way We Worked” exhibition. The Museum collaborated with the Smithsonian Institution to develop a unique humanities-based exhibition about local work history. SITES had two goals for this pilot program, to exhibit more of their collections in the wider community and to lower the barrier for smaller museums interested in participating in SITES. Hart Cluett used this pilot program to change the way it developed exhibitions and center their social media around storytelling. 

Opening exhibition panel for the Smithsonian Institute Traveling Exhibition Services’ “The Way We Worked.”

Background

Hart Cluett was the only museum in New York State selected for this collaborative pilot program. The museum applied in late July/early August in 2019, received notice of participation in September, and the exhibition opened to the public on February 28, 2020.

The museum raised $130,000 to support additional programs, pay for the cost of the panel production, repainting of the gallery spaces, for new cases, and to increase staff time.

“The Smithsonian had a basic script that had been used within their institution,” said Stacy Pomeroy Draper, Curator at the Hart Cluett Museum. “So they had a template, they had text, they had a concept but the concept for this pilot program was to allow the participating museums to tailor it to tell their story. The topic of “work” was easy to work with, especially since it has evolved rapidly in the last 18 months.”

The Smithsonian provided the museum with Adobe inDesign software for graphics in order to customize the panels in order to switch out text and images. “Everything had to be approved by the Smithsonian, which was not the way we usually work,” said Draper. “Here in a small institution, yes we sometimes do collaborative projects, but often it tends just to be me and I think that’s pretty typical of small museum staff.” For Draper and museum staff, this added time to the overall exhibition process and a logistical change. The museum provided feedback to the SITES throughout.

The Way We Worked

“The Way We Worked” was adapted from an exhibition originally developed by the National Archives that explored how work became such a central element in American culture. It traced the many changes that affected the workforce and work environments over the past 150 years. 

The Smithsonian did not send any physical artifacts but provided between 80-85 digital panels to be used by Hart Cluett. “We made the decision early on not to use every panel from the Smithsonian but we used the majority of them,” said Draper. “We also didn’t change every panel but we did add text to most of them in order to focus the content around Rensselaer County.” Hart Cluett included historical images, art, artifacts, and oral histories from their collection.

The Hart Cluett Museum incorporated a number of artifacts from their collection into the exhibition. 

The exhibition is divided into four sections: “Where We Work,” “How We Work,” “Who Works?” and “Why We Work.” It covers just over two centuries and showcases early technological advances in agriculture, trade, detachable collars, and iron and steel manufacturing. 

“We included historic clothing to help tell individual stories of working whether it was a military or nurse uniform. The clothing stood in for people and topics,” said Draper. “I think the thing that we are still tackling is how work has changed.” Draper got approval from the Smithsonian to change one of the panels regarding home versus office work. “It was so ironic that work was the topic but it was the perfect example of how work evolves and why it evolves, not just because of the pandemic but because of the role of technology.” An advisory panel consisting of more than two dozen area professionals from widely different regional workplaces provided a contemporary perspective on the ever changing nature of work. The panel included experts with backgrounds in technology, construction, agriculture, education, and workforce development. 

“I think this exhibition is special in comparison to a lot of our other exhibitions because it is really personal,” said Samantha Mahoski, Assistant Curator and Outreach Coordinator. “Everyone works in one way or another so to see the police uniform or the nurse uniform you can see people you know and that makes this exhibition personable in ways that other exhibitions haven’t.”

Going Digital

One of the challenges for Hart Cluett and this pilot program was that the museum shut down on March 12, 2021 in response to the pandemic, only two weeks after the exhibition opened to the public. “Even before COVID, we had a conversation about creating something digital that would be interactive and a new way to look at the exhibit that was beyond the physical space,” said Mahoski. “Once COVID started, it became evident that we needed something to keep people engaged because we had spent the last six months promoting it and we were excited to to share this with people.” With the permission of the Smithsonian, Mahoski created an Instagram account, @the_wayweworked, that was entirely dedicated to the exhibition. Mahoski needed to create a social media plan for the Smithsonian to review and approve where she outlined the account’s purpose, its goals, and an overview of what would be posted. 

Images from @the_wayweworked Instagram feed

“It was fun to walk through the process of creating this Instagram account with the Smithsonian,” said Mahoski. “We wanted this to be fun and engaging because social media should be fun and engaging. We wanted to highlight things that you wouldn’t see at a surface level as another way to present the material and the process because people were interested in behind the scenes, documenting what we were doing.” Despite the challenges caused by the pandemic, the museum took it as an opportunity to review their own social media plan. “It forced me to think about what is the point [for the museum’s social media channels] and what are we trying to do,” said Mahoski. 

Other Challenges

For this exhibition, the Smithsonian looked at a 150 year time frame. “One of the very first things that we requested was to increase the time frame  to 225 years which corresponds to the founding of our county,” said Draper. “This also made it a challenge because it is such a broad swath of storytelling.” 

Hart Cluett planned on tackling this challenge with more focused programming, but have not been able to implement the plans because of the pandemic. The @the_wayweworked Instagram account helps the museum go beyond the images and panel text and into more detail. “It takes the place of, in essence, a gallery guide which we would normally do,” said Draper. 

Moving Forward

The museum hopes to resume its in-person programming for this fall. “We have a series of behind the scenes tours throughout the county showcasing different work environments as well as lectures, and more,” said Draper. The Smithsonian extended the exhibition through the end of 2021. Hart Cluett has the rights to their own version of the exhibition for 5 years. “Even though the exhibition isn’t going to be up for 5 years, we can take a component of it or move it to another venue.” Currently the museum is working on their schedule with the next exhibition focusing on agriculture. 

“The direct connection to the present is really clear in ‘The Way We Work’ exhibition,” said Draper. “We’re trying to continue to do that because it helps people understand and gives them something to connect with.”

Learn more about Hart Cluett’s “The Way We Worked” exhibition: https://www.hartcluett.org/the-way-we-worked

Follow @the_wayweworked on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_wayweworked/

Learn more about SITES: https://www.sites.si.edu/s/

Click here to watch the video

With no gallery space and its building closed to the public, the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts at St. Bonaventure University created a virtual studio space and worked with teachers to connect students to art. Assistant Curator and Museum Educator Sean Conklin provided hybrid asynchronous days for teachers using digital tools and providing pickup and drop off art supplies. Using an artwork not normally accessible to the public, Faith Ringgold’s Sunflower: Quilting Bee at Arles, the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts partnered with the African American Center for Cultural Development in Olean, NY in a virtual object based learning activity for sixth grade students to better understand the prominence of quilts in Black art and culture by making their own story quilt. 

The Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts is one of 98 museums across NYS participating in MANY’s “Building “Building Capacity, Creating Sustainability, Growing Accessibility”, an IMLS CARES Act grant project designed to help museums impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic share their collections and reach audiences who cannot physically visit their museums.

This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Learn more about “Building Capacity”: https://nysmuseums.org/IMLS

Learn more about the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts: https://www.sbu.edu/life-at-sbu/arts-events/regina-a.-quick-center-for-the-arts

Glacial Erratic Trail, Settlement Quarry, Stonington, ME*

Dear Members, Friends and Supporters,

From March 22 to April 26, 2021, MANY gathered data on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on NY’s museums. The report that we will publish later this fall will paint a picture of a field grappling with tremendous change. Like the way glaciers deposited boulders from afar onto the granite ledges of the Maine coast 16,000 years ago, COVID-19 dropped into our society and caused us all to change direction. 

More than 80% of respondents agreed that the pandemic will make a lasting impact on the way their museums operate and serve audiences. Respondents shared that their museums are looking for post-pandemic pathways to financial stability, routes to advance relationships with their communities, and steps to create healthier institutions. 

As we emerge from the pandemic and people begin to feel safe to gather, I know museums are looking forward to welcoming visitors. Although we are seeing tremendous potential for growth and transformation on the horizon, the problem of how museums will achieve sustainability is keeping me awake long past moonrise. 

• With limited time and money, how do we create success and connect it to social value? 

• How do we create new spaces and structures that work for everybody, and not just part of the population? 

• How do we center the voices of people from historically underrepresented and marginalized communities? 

• How do we redefine our needs to our constituents, legislators, funders, and donors so that museums can be seen as truly essential partners? 

I believe our long-term success will be connected to the ways in which we keep our learnings from 2020 relevant. I also believe that museums should not have to choose between financial stability and social engagement. Some answers will lie in the ways we build capacity and embrace change. Earlier this year, the Institute of Museum and Library Services published the report Market Analysis and Opportunity Assessment of Museum Capacity Building Programs. It has been my touchstone as we seek ways to leverage MANY’s strengths to support and sustain New York’s Museums. I wouldn’t call it summer beach reading, but in its pages you may find inspiration and the beginning of a new path forward.

With thanks for your support,

Erika Sanger

*Stonington, Maine was settled on the traditional lands of the people of the Penobscot Nation, members of the Wabanaki Confederacy, who have stewarded the land for generations. I respect the traditional values of these Tribes and affirm their inherent sovereignty in this territory. I support their efforts for land and water protection and restoration, and for cultural healing and recovery.  

Fifty three New York State museums and cultural institutions received federal COVID-19 relief through the Shuttered Venue Operating Grants (SVOG) program of the Small Business Administration, totaling just under $115 million. 

• Battle of Plattsburgh Association, North Country – $4,825

• Cobblestone Society, Finger Lakes – $6,884

• Iroquois Indian Museum, Mohawk Valley – $18,598

• Council for the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall, Inc., Long Island – $19,990

• Whitehall Skene Manor Preservation, Inc., North Country – $22,588

• Casa Belvedere, The Italian Cultural Foundation, NYC – $23,578

• Garibaldi-Meucci Museum, NYC – $46,413

• Southern Tier Zoological Society, Inc, Southern Tier – $51,043

• Children’s Museum of HIstory, Natural History & Science, Mohawk Valley – $50,050

• Chinatown Soup, Inc., NYC – $53,249

• Irish American Heritage Museum, Capital Region – $55,051

• Boscobel Restoration, Inc., Mid-Hudson – $71,798

• The Children’s Museum of Science and Technology, Capital Region – $73,639

• Staten Island Zoological Society, NYC – $79,554

• Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling, NYC – $80,412 

• George Eastman Museum, Finger Lakes – $94,467

• The Hyde Collection Trust, Capital Region – $102,384

• Brooklyn Children’s Museum, NYC – $103,860

• Tesla Science Center at Wardencly, Long Island – $130,859

• Roberson Museum and Science Center, Southern Tier – $155,575

• Museum of the City of New York, NYC – $170,990

• Staten Island Children’s Museum, NYC – $174,263

• The Children’s Museum of Oswego,Central NY – $175,874

• Ukrainian Institute of America, NYC – $203,809

• Discovery Center of Science & Technology, Southern Tier– $217,842

• Jewish Children’s Museum, NYC – $221,888

• Utica Zoological Society, Mohawk Valley – $272,931

• September 11th Widows and Victims Families Association, NYC – $370,181

• Rochester Museum & Science Center, Southern Tier – $441,228

• Schenectady Museum Association, Capital Region – $455,514

• American Museum of the Moving Image, Long Island – $547,029

• Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks (The Wild Center), North Country – $570,020

• National Comedy Center, Inc., Western NY – $573,442

• National Comedy Center Operator, Western NY – $598,237

• Cradle of Aviation Museum, Long Island – $661,234

• Long Island Children’s Museum, Long Island – $779,003

• Niagara Aquarium Foundation, Western NY – $1,028,316

• Museum of Arts and Design, NYC – $1,108,912

• New-York Historical Society, NYC – 1,239,515

• The Asia Society, NYC – $1,434,803

• Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum (Strong National Museum of Play), Finger Lakes – $2,238,217

• Lower East Side Tenement Museum, NYC – $2,245,142

• National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum, Mohawk Valley –$4,728,163

• The Corning Museum of Glass, Southern Tier – $5,549,553

• Intrepid Museum Foundation, NYC – $8,000,000

• Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, NYC – $9,740,702

• New York Botanical Garden, NYC – $10,000,000

• Wildlife Conservation Society, NYC – $10,000,000

• American Museum of Natural History, NYC – $10,000,000

• Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC – $10,000,000

• The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, NYC – $10,000,000

• Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC – $10,000,000

The SVOG program was created by the Economic Aid to Hard-Hit Small Business, Nonprofits, and Venues and was signed into law in late December, 2020. It appropriated $15 billion to the SVOG program, which received another $1.25 billion after the American Rescue Plan Act was signed into law on March 11, 2021. SVOG funds can be used for salary support, rent and utility payments, administrative costs, and other expenses including maintenance costs. Grants were based on organization size, budget, and past COVID-19 related Federal support. 

The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY received $5.5 million in SVOG funding

“The Corning Museum of Glass is grateful to receive relief funding from the federal Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) program,” said Karol Wight, President and Executive Director. “Like our peer institutions, the Museum was hard hit by the COVID-19 closure last spring, and our full recovery from significant financial loss will take time. We tell the story of a single, transformative material—glass—and inspire people to see the power and potential of glass in an entirely new light. Federal funding programs like the SVOG recognize that same power and potential in cultural institutions, allowing us to not only survive current circumstances, but thrive into the future. Special thanks to Senator Schumer who championed this relief funding, recognizing the important role museums, in particular, play in New York State and across the country in preserving the past and in enriching lives in the present.” 

“We are grateful for the federal government’s key support of cultural institutions and museums through the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program,” said Steve Dubnik, president and CEO of The Strong in Rochester. “With reduced attendance revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these critical funds allow us to maintain our building and collections, pay fixed facility costs, support payroll for our talented staff, and continue to carry out our important mission of preserving the history of play.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (far left) with Michael Grasso, Executive Director of the Roberson Museum and Science Center (far right) at a press conference in Binghamton NY highlighting the success of vaccinations in New York along with the COVID relief package. The Roberson Museum and Science Center received just over $155,000 in funding. 

The Roberson Museum and Science Center in the Southern Tier plans to use some of its SVOG funding to support staff salaries. “This relief from the federal government alleviates some of the stress and losses from having been closed or under reduced capacity for most of 2020,” said Michael Grasso, Executive Director of the Roberson Museum and Science Center. “This infusion of funds will be directed to paying staff salaries and health insurance so we can continue to delight and educate our community with exhibitions in art, history, and science. A special thank you to Majority Leader Schumer who fought for museum inclusion in this critical legislation."

“The Irish American Heritage Museum is delighted to receive funding from the SVOG,” said Dr. Elizabeth Stack, Executive Director of the Irish American Heritage Museum in Albany. “The Pandemic taught us that we need to be flexible and creative in how the museum presents its offerings, so we will use the money to invest in our digital presence and film some of our exhibits so that we can offer a virtual museum experience to followers...After almost a year of being closed, receiving the SVOG means that we are truly excited about the possibilities ahead of us, because we have the potential now to grow what we are instead of simply sustaining what we were. It really is an investment in the future of the museum and one for which we are extremely grateful.”

The Wild Center 

In the North County, The Wild Center received just over half a million in SVOG funding. "The Wild Center is grateful and truly relieved to receive the SVOG COVID Relief funding from the federal government,” said Hillarie Logan-Dechene, Deputy Director of The Wild Center. “It will be well used to continue to employ our amazing staff, replace some of the lost earned revenue from the mandatory closure last year and our curtailed operations during COVID. It has been a tough 15 months and this funding helps The Wild Center continue to connect people and nature while keeping our staff and community safe, as well as help the regional economy recover."

The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, which reopened to the public last September, received $10 million. “We are beyond thrilled to receive this funding and recognition of our value to the community. We, along with every cultural organization, have lost millions,’ said Susan Marenoff-Zausner, President of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. “To receive this grant is to secure a pathway to continued viability and sustainability to be open and welcoming to all New Yorkers and all those from around the world.”

The relief funding comes almost 16 months after Congress approved the SVOG program. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) led the effort to include museums in the SVOG and a bipartisan coalition of Senators led by the initial sponsors of the SVOG program (formerly known as the “Save Our Stages” Act)–Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Cornyn (R-TX).  New York’s museums are especially grateful for Senator Schumer’s support of our sector. Erika Sanger, MANY’s Executive Director was honored to present Senate Schumer the well-earned 2020 Museum Advocacy Award on behalf of the American Alliance of Museums. 

When the Smithsonian Institution launched Open Access in February 2020, copyright restrictions were removed from millions of digital collection images and nearly two centuries of data. Since then, creatives, researchers, and collaborators from around the world have downloaded, transformed, and re-shared this content for any purpose free, and without restriction. Supported by Verizon 5G Labs, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s Interaction Lab recently launched “Activating Smithsonian Open Access” (ASOA), an open call for designers to submit new digital interactions and innovative tools that enable play and discovery with the Smithsonian’s Open Access collections. Cooper Hewitt hopes to identify compelling projects that the Interaction Lab might explore for wider use across the Smithsonian in the future.

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum located on Museum Mile, NYC

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Cooper Hewitt’s design collection contains over 215,000 objects that span thirty centuries. Over 95% of that collection is digitized and available online through the Museum’s collection portal. On-site visitors can interact with the collection through dedicated exhibitions installed on the Museum’s second floor. This exhibition series called “Selects,” invites a guest curator to explore a theme or tell a story using works in the permanent collection. “Since the Museum reopened in 2014, Cooper Hewitt has offered the opportunity to play with digital collections on-site by using one of our multi-touch digital tables, and playing with wall coverings in the projection-based “Immersion Room,” said Rachel Ginsberg, Interaction Lab Director. “In addition to museum visits, students and educators may encounter the museum’s collection through the growing Smithsonian Learning Lab collection, which provides teaching tools for educators and caregivers, and free virtual Design Field Trips for K-12 students across the country, which explore the design process and build connections to Cooper Hewitt’s collection.”

Cooper Hewitt’s “The Pen” offers visitors “collect” and “save” objects from around the galleries and explore more of the online collections database

Interaction Lab

Launched in 2019, the Interaction Lab is a research and development program, or as Cooper Hewitt calls it, “a lab without walls.” It is focused on visitor experience that’s closely related to Cooper Hewitt’s mission as the Smithsonian Design Museum. “By convening, experimenting and co-creating with museum practitioners, the design community, and the public, we’re reimagining the Cooper Hewitt experience and exploring futures for museum experience broadl,” said Ginsberg. The Lab’s work falls roughly into four interconnected areas: visitor experience research, thought leadership, design commissions, partnerships (for research and prototyping), and public programming. 

“In our research and thought leadership work, provocations originate from the Interaction Lab, but we conduct the work in collaboration with others,” said Ginsberg. Cooper Hewitt’s recent publication Tools and Approaches for Transforming Museum Experience was co-authored by a diverse group of museum practitioners working across visitor experience. “Sometimes a program will cross multiple areas, like Activating Smithsonian Open Access,” said Ginsberg. “That’s a partnership with Verizon 5G Labs that is also a commissioning program. Public programming for the Interaction Lab is connected to everything we do.” 

Cooper Hewitt’s initial goal for the Interaction Lab was to explore the future of the Museum experience. Cooper Hewitt spent the first year of the Lab’s existence mapping opportunities in the museum to understand how best to invest in staff time and resources. “Early in the process, we established values that would drive our work–that it would be cross-disciplinary, collaborative, and as transparent as possible,” said Ginsberg. “We would build on our identity as a design museum by inviting people into our own design process to think and learn with us.”

Activating Smithsonian Open Access 

Working with Verizon 5G Labs, Cooper Hewitt opened a call for designers, technology teams, creators, etc. to submit proposals to stimulate new ideas for digital interactions with the more than 3 million objects in the Smithsonian’s Open Access collections. 

Each project must include an audience objective, offer wide access for both the technology platform and collections accessibility. Finalists present their prototypes to the Smithsonian and Verizon, and in virtual programs to the public. 

“We believe that creative commissioning has a tremendous amount of potential for museums and other cultural sector institutions,” said Ginsberg. “Taking this kind of approach has been central to the Lab’s strategy since the start and we are thrilled to have been able to focus on such a compelling dataset as Smithsonian Open Access.” 

Objectives

Cooper Hewitt’s Interaction Lab is specifically interested in tools that focus on 2D images from their Open Access collections. “We launched the open call with a very specific creative brief that specified the kinds of interactions we were interested in receiving from the teams,” said Ginsberg. “In particular, we wanted people to propose ways to engage with collections that moved beyond what we described as a ‘passive looking experience.” Smithsonian Open Access is an astonishing dataset that contains a tremendous range of materials. We felt strongly about wanting to present experiences that explore a diverse range of thought and an approach capable of reaching as wide a range of people as possible.”

As part of their creative brief, Cooper Hewitt highlighted seven focus areas for ASOA proposals: 

Analytical

Analyze and synthesize data from collections to draw conclusions or offer insights about the objects contained therein

Visualization

Devise new modes of digital display for collections that offer compelling experiences in two- and three-dimensions, e.g. augmented reality, animation

Contextual

Create context around objects by placing them in new environments

Creative Alteration

Tools that let users remix/alter objects, and/or considers objects as raw materials to build other kinds of interactions

Enhances Storytelling Capability

Creates focused narratives around an individual object or series of objects.

Accessibility

Increase the accessibility of Open Access collections for people with various physical and cognitive abilities. For example, integrating audio and visual descriptions; building multimodal interactions; or creating teaching tools with collections to engage those who benefit from different modalities

Play with Smithsonian Web Components

Expand and improve upon the Smithsonian’s open-source collection of web components, called Voyager. Voyager Story is the Smithsonian’s Open Source 3D Storytelling platform. It enables curators and other experts to create educational experiences around 3D objects by adding text, images, and tours. Since its creation, its components have been expanded to support advanced features like AR and more. 

Cooper Hewitt’s goals for the process of commissioning include introducing new ideas to the museum, supporting the creation of compelling interactions with digital collections, and sharing the design stories behind their creation. “We’ll be publishing those as a series of blog posts written by ASOA teams in the weeks following our launch,” said Ginsberg. “We’ve also been able to collaborate with a wide range of practitioners from across the Smithsonian through this program and are looking forward to exploring future opportunities for these seven projects in other areas of the Institution.” 

The Finalists

Seven teams were commissioned by Cooper Hewitt’s Interaction Lab to develop new digital interactions and innovative tools. Teams received $10,000 each and will have ten weeks to create their project. The Smithsonian, Verizon, and industry experts will provide mentorship throughout and all teams will own their intellectual property that they create during the project.

“We’ve supported the creation of a truly diverse range of talented people and projects,” said Ginsberg. “It was our ambition to demonstrate a programmatic approach that could generate projects of real value to the creators and also to the Museum. We felt like we’ve accomplished that and are truly excited to see what comes next.”

Presenting the prototypes, the seven finalists for Activating Smithsonian Open Access

ART CLOCK

A data visualization tool that offers users a novel way to browse and learn about Smithsonian Open Access collections by analyzing visual characteristics of the dataset and compiling images into various configurations of clock interfaces.

TEAM: Zander Brimijoin, Daniel Scheibel, Greg Schomburg, Erin Stowell,  Lisa Walters, Jiwon Ham

ARTECHO

A web based acoustic VR experience that reveals the acoustic attributes of 3D objects in the Smithsonian’s Open Access collections. Though created primarily for the blind and low vision community, the platform offers another way for all people to experience 3D objects.

TEAM: John Roach,  Zhizhen (Jerry) Tan, Thomas Tajo

BUTTARFLY

This experience will render 2D images of butterflies from Smithsonian Open Access collections into 3D format that invites users to learn more, while offering a delightful augmented reality interaction.

TEAM: Jonathan Lee, Miriam Langer, Rianne Trujillo, Lauren Addario

DOORWAYS INTO OPEN ACCESS

Marrying physical and digital space, Doorways connects users to augmented reality experiences with Open Access collections out in the world featuring specific historical periods or events.

TEAM: Abigail Honor, Jean-Pierre Dufresne, Angelo Calilap, Gevorg Manukyan, Yan Vizinberg, Chris Cooper and Alex Robete

LOOT MERCH

Democratize access to art and inspire conversations about ownership and digital repatriation by transforming 2D images of Open Access African art objects into 3D assets to be used in social AR experiences and other open-source projects.

TEAM: Mayowa Tomori, Olu Gbadegbo, and Olivia Cueva

SCIENCEVR

A collaborative VR game where users search for objects selected from the Smithsonian’s Open Access dataset within an immersive environment and learn more about each object and its history.

TEAM: Jackie Lee, Ph.D, Yen-Ling Kuo, Caitlin Krause

WRITING WITH OPEN ACCESS

As users write in this web-based creative tool, it identifies keywords in the writing, and dynamically generates visual narratives from  Smithsonian Open Access collections to accompany essays, research, poetry and more.

TEAM: Jono Brandel, Sunny Oh, Hiroaki Yamane

Surprises and Challenges

“This has been an incredible program to put on, but building and managing it was a complex task,” said Ginsberg. “This kind of open call approach isn’t common to the Smithsonian, so it took a lot of coordination among quite a large group of people to ensure that we were adhering to Smithsonian guidelines, and supporting our cohort in creating exciting work that would connect Cooper Hewitt and the Smithsonian to people all over the world. That said, I am tremendously thankful to have thoughtful, dedicated colleagues at Cooper Hewitt, throughout the Smithsonian, and supportive counterparts at Verizon 5G Labs. ASOA is the result of many people working behind the scenes to make sure the pieces fit together.”

Future Casting

After the first year devoted to discovery and a second year of adjustment due to the pandemic, Cooper Hewitt hopes that year three will be full of shared exploration, design opportunities, and exciting releases. “Our plans are focused on building on what we know is working–convening diverse groups of practitioners and the public for thoughtful discussion, co-creative research and prototyping, building dynamic partnerships with like-minded organizations and individuals, issuing provocations about the future of the museum sector, and collaborating with the design community on a reimagined Cooper Hewitt experience that considers how we work alongside what we make,” said Ginsberg. 

On Tuesday, August 3 at 2 PM, Cooper Hewitt will present the prototypes from the seven finalists as part of a demo day in an hour-long webinar. The webinar is free and open to the public where finalists will share more details about their projects. Following the webinar, the prototypes will be available to the public for experimentation and exploration. 

“Our creators are a dedicated and hardworking group of people, all bringing very different ways of thinking about digital experience powered by museum collections,” said Ginsberg. “Being able to demonstrate those ideas with working prototypes really changes the conversation about the future of projects like these at Cooper Hewitt and across the Smithsonian.”

Learn more about Cooper Hewitt’s Interaction Lab–Activating Smithsonian Open Access: https://www.cooperhewitt.org/activating-smithsonian-open-access/

Register for “Presenting the Prototypes: Demo Say with Activating Smithsonian Open Access” webinar on August 3: https://www.cooperhewitt.org/event/presenting-the-prototypes-demo-day-with-activating-smithsonian-open-access-08-03-2021/

MANY Staff at Fort Ticonderoga, June 24, 2021

Dear Members, Friends, and Supporters,

On June 23^rd, MANY’s board of directors met at the Hart-Cluett Museum in Troy. During a break, we toured the Hart-Cluett’s exhibition galleries and the historic “Marble House” at 59 Second Street. The next day, MANY staff visited Fort Ticonderoga where we saw their new virtual program delivery studio and gained a deeper understanding of how the Fort, located between Lakes George and Champlain, played a pivotal role in history. Today, an image of the Everson Museum of Art from June 2019 popped up in my Facebook “memories.” We were in Syracuse to launch the New York tour of the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street Water/Ways exhibition at the Erie Canal Museum. 

For most of the past 16 months, what I used to think of as simple – make plans, travel to see a museum with people you know, meet other people you know, meet new people, share a meal, talk about what you saw at the museum – was impossible. I honestly didn’t know how much I missed traveling and seeing museums until last week when the energy generated by gathering, sharing a laugh, and the sonic boom of a demonstration canon shot renewed my spirit in a way I had forgotten. The MANY travel life rhythm emerged and we celebrated. 

Yes, it can still be complicated and perhaps risky to travel and many museum professionals remain anxious about welcoming visitors without occupancy restrictions and maintaining mask requirements to protect the unvaccinated. It is not quite time to let down all of our guard rails. We have years of work ahead of us to heal the racist harms woven into the fabric of our nation. But as you make summer plans, I urge you to visit a nearby museum - perhaps one you haven’t visited before, say hello to your colleagues, and experience the renewed energy of doing one of the things I know you love. Need some inspiration? Check out the Places to Go in New York State pages on the I Love NY website. 

Starting in September, MANY will be offering workshops in museums in every region of New York State. Working with the presenters and selecting the locations got us excited, and then the travel plans! I swoon contemplating the views from I-90. Looking for new ways to engage with your community? The Museum and Folk Art Forum will be an exciting way to explore the possibilities of working with traditional artists. Only four spaces remain open to attend the 2021 Museum Institute “Leadership, Partnership, Mentorship” and many of the grant writing workshops are already at half capacity. The Partnership Forum in your region doesn’t fit your professional development needs? Travel to one in a nearby region! We can arrange for you to get a discount at a local hotel and you can hang out with MANY staff after the program. You can follow our travels on our Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn with the hashtags #manyonthemove and #nysmuseums. I so look forward to seeing you and hearing about all that you have been working on in your museums.

With thanks for your support,

Erika Sanger

Images from Fort Ticonderoga

The Mineral Hall in the Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History.

Photo courtesy of D. Finnin/©AMNH

The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) opened its Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals to the public on June 12 after being closed for four years. Minerals and gems have been part of the AMNH collections since it was founded in 1869.  The Halls underwent extensive renovation as part of the Museum's 150th anniversary. The 11,000 square-foot space features the Museum's permanent collection of minerals, gems, and meteorites totaling more than 120,000 specimens. The renovation not only showcases the Museum’s collection but provides an engaging guide to current scientific knowledge about the Earth. Multi-media presentations and interactives align with next generation science standards and  can serve as a learning lab for science teacher education and professional development while being accessible to the general public. 

History of the Halls

The Museum’s collection of gems and minerals is housed in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. It comprises around 200,000 specimens of minerals, gems, rocks, and meteorites and is continuing to expand thanks to an active research and collecting program. Curators, research scientists, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students study topics that include the origin of rubies in Southeast Asia, volatile gases that lead to volcanic eruptions, past changes to ocean circulation and climate, the formation of rocks in subduction zones, the differentiation of planetary bodies, and the mineral and chemical origins of the solar system.

Reimagined Spaces

 Before the renovation, the collection was displayed in a warren of galleries that made it a challenge to interpret.  The new Halls were designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates with David Brody Bond as architects who worked with AMNH’s exhibition department under the direction of Lauri Halderman, the Museum's Vice President for Exhibition. The Halls are divided into three sections: the Gem Hall, the Mineral Hall, and the Melissa and Keith Meister Gallery for temporary exhibitions.

Photo courtesy of D. Finnin/©AMNH

The Gem Hall includes nearly 2,500 items on display and includes precious stones, carvings, and jewelry from around the world. The Mineral Hall comprises four sections: Mineral Forming Environments, Mineral Fundamentals, Systematic Classification, and Minerals & Light. 

“The goal was to present minerals and gems in terms of answering what they are and then lay out the Mineral hall to address their context on Earth, organized around the environments on Earth in which they form,” said AMNH Curator George E. Harlow of the Museum’s Division of Physical Sciences who organized the Halls. “We defined five basic environments: Igneous (once molten), Weathering (chemical alteration by air and water), Hydrothermal (formed from hot water), Metamorphic (changed by mountain building and shifts in Earth’s crust), and Pegmatitic (a post-igneous condition in which large crystals grow in large spaces).” Harlow describes that the new focus cases can deal with a mineral or place and include historical connections. 

“We did much more than a renovation,” said Harlow. “These are totally new Halls in the location of the old.”

Systematic Classification Wall

Along the west wall of the Hall of Minerals is the Systematic Classification display, which contains 659 specimens that represent the chemical classification system scientists use to organize Earth’s more than 5,500 mineral species. Pictured in the foreground is an orbicular granite from the Yilgarn Craton in Western Australia.

Photo courtesy of D. Finnin/©AMNH

“Mineral Forming Environments” is at the center of the Hall and is dedicated to the environments in which and process of how minerals are formed. “Mineral Fundamentals” explores overarching concepts of mineral sciences. “Systematic Classification” runs along the Halls west wall and contains 659 specimens that represent the chemical classification system that scientists use to organize the Earth’s more than 5,000 mineral species. It also has an interactive feature where visitors can explore forming minerals from the elements on the periodic table. The last section, “Minerals & Light,” is a room located off the east wall. It explores the optical properties of minerals and how they interact with light.

Sterling Hill Fluorescent Rock Panel

The centerpiece of the Minerals & Light room is a wall-sized panel of fluorescent rock that glows in shades of orange and green, sourced from Sterling Hill in New Jersey. 

Photo courtesy of D. Finnin/©AMNH

The “Minerals & Light” space uses a state of the art lighting system that incorporates cool and warm full-spectrum LEDs and sophisticated lighting controls to highlight the texture, color, and reflectivity of the minerals and gems on display. The space also uses short and long-wave ultraviolet sources that reveal colors in fluorescent minerals. The goal was to provide visitors the opportunity to experience the depth and character of the minerals and gems on display. 

Beautiful Creatures, an exhibition of some of the world’s most spectacular jewelry inspired by animals, is on view through September 19, 2021, in the Melissa and Keith Meister Gallery. The exhibition features imaginative jewels from the world’s great jewelry houses and designers—including Cartier’s iconic panthers, Bulgari's snakes, Suzanne Belperron’s butterflies, and more.

Photo courtesy of D. Finnin/©AMNH

The Meister Gallery houses the temporary exhibition, “Beautiful Creatures” that features designs by some of the world’s great jewelry houses and artisans. The pieces on view range from the mid-19th century to the present and are displayed into categories of animals on land, air, and water. 

Educational Resource

The Hall’s exhibits, including media and interactive content, were developed to align with Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), illustrate Crosscutting Concepts, serve as a lab for science teacher education and professional development, and make connections to other museum halls.

The Halls were designed as an educational resource for teachers and students to explore current scientific knowledge about the Earth. They Halls support current educational standards by acknowledging the interdisciplinary nature of evidence-based science. This includes: Earth science (how minerals form), chemistry (an interactive periodic table), physics (Minerals & Light gallery space–how light interacts with minerals), and biology (the role of life in the evolution of Earth’s minerals). 

“When I started at the Museum, there were probably around 2,500 minerals described and now there are more than 5,000,” said Harlow. “The enhanced Halls present up-to-date science, which has progressed significantly.”

Photo courtesy of D. Finnin/©AMNH

The Halls play a key role in the Museum’s Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program which prepares Earth science teachers for grades 7 to 12 in high-needs schools in New York City and throughout New York State. Teachers that participate in the MAT program will use the Halls as a tangible teaching tool for their own classes once they graduate. 

Periodic Table Interactive

This interactive display illustrates the periodic table of chemical elements and allows visitors to “make minerals.”

Photo courtesy of D. Finnin/©AMNH

Into the Future 

The renovation of the Halls is just one part of the physical and programmatic initiatives undertaken by AMNH for the 150th anniversary celebration. This project culminates in the opening of the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, a new 230,000 square foot facility that adds galleries, classrooms, an immersive theatre, and a redesigned library. With this new space, the Museum’s research, collections, and library spaces will be revitalized and expanded to include behind the scenes functions that will be visible and accessible to the public. The Gilder Center hopes to enhance the Museum’s capacity to partner with schools, teacher professional development programs, and out-of-state programs for students, introduce digital tools of science, and explore college and career opportunities. The Center will provide new, flexible learning spaces that are integrated with exhibitions, collections, and science labs in order to create immersive learning experiences. The Museum anticipates that the space will add 745,000 visitors annually. 

Exhibition staff members install specimens in the all-new Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History. 

Photo courtesy of D. Finnin/©AMNH

Harlow hopes that visitors to the Halls will be greeted with a feast for the eyes with many interesting stories that are told by the minerals, including large sized specimens consistent with the geological environment. “My hope is that a visitor’s curiosity about a specimen or case will lead to the discover ‘I didn’t know that’ or ‘that is very interesting.’” 

 

Learn more about the Halls of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History: https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/gems-minerals