By Carol Tannenhauser
First things first: yes, the Gilder Center, the proposed addition to the Museum of Natural History, has grown in size from 218,000 square feet to 235,000 square feet. But, according to Museum officials, that’s a function of both the process of moving from “a conceptual to a schematic design” and the fact that the Museum is also “expanding inward,” demolishing three of its 27 existing buildings, and “mining” every bit of available space within the institution.
“The important thing,” said Daniel Slippen, vice president of government relations, “is that the additional square footage does not impact the height or bulk of the building, nor the footprint of the building in the park.”
Slippen spoke at a public informational meeting, held at the museum on Tuesday night, following the filing on September 8th of the first formal application and request for approval for the Gilder Center, with the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). Panelists representing the museum, including Jeanne Gang, the architect, presented the plans submitted to the LPC in detail, down to the stone that will be used (if available) on the proposed Center’s Columbus Avenue façade – Milford pink granite – the same stone that was used on the Museum’s Central Park West entrance, the New York State Memorial to Theodore Roosevelt, completed in 1936.
Slides of the redesign of Theodore Roosevelt Park around the proposed Gilder Center were shown, and we’ve posted images below. But the colorful renderings did not diffuse the passionate protests of opponents of the project. Opponents at the meeting criticized the design and the potential for increased congestion and idling school buses. But they were most aggravated by the destruction of 11,600 square feet of parkland and seven very old trees. (The park redesign made it possible to save two trees that had been slated for destruction.)
Before the museum’s meeting, opponents of the plan held their own gathering of about 50 people, on Columbus Avenue and 79th street, where the Gilder Center would be situated: carrying signs, giving speeches, signing petitions, soliciting contributions to retain legal counsel, chanting “Withdraw the plan!” and singing Joni Mitchell’s classic “Big Yellow Taxi,” emphasizing the verse that goes,
“They took all the trees
And put ’em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see ’em”
Inside, the meeting sometimes got ugly. With Gang sitting beneath an Imax-sized image of the building she designed, one man said, “I live across the street, which means I’ll have to look at that monstrosity every day. It reminds me of a parking garage in Milwaukee!”
Jeanne Gang is a MacArthur Fellow.
“The LPC submission also indicates the areas in which various exhibitions and programs will be housed within the Gilder Center,” read a statement from the Museum. These include exhibitions about insects; the “Invisible Worlds Theater,” revealing new frontiers of research in such areas as the intricate architecture of the human brain and unexplored ocean depths; the butterfly conservancy; the library; and opportunities to view collections and research scientists at work.
Equally important are the 30 new connections that will be created by the Gilder Center between the Museum’s existing buildings, improving the flow and experience of the more than five million visitors each year, including 500,000 New York City schoolchildren.
Before it can win approval from the LPC, the Gilder Center application must be voted on by Community Board (CB) 7. Before being sent to the full Board for a vote, it will be reviewed at a CB 7 Preservation/Parks and Environment joint meeting, to be held on Tuesday, September 20th. Once again, the LPC application will be presented and community members will be given an opportunity to speak. This is not an exercise in futility; in the pictures below, you can see the many changes that have already been made to the design of the western side of Teddy Roosevelt Park, because of the efforts of a “park working group,” comprised of representatives from the museum, government, and the community.
This will be a wonderful and much needed addition to a great cultural institution. Truly this is a pure public good benefiting all of the people for generations. Only a selfish small minded person could be opposed.
No it’s not. It is a vanity project for a billionaire!
“Only a selfish small minded person could be opposed.”
no discussion allowed without admitting to selfishness and small-mindedness?
a little selfish and small-minded ya’ think?
Nope!
that’s discussion
of a sort
Fantastic!
Better than putting up a parking lot…
After we kill this proposal, we’re going to rip out the bike lanes and restore all the potholes on Amsterdam and Columbus.
Then we’re going to evict any stores we don’t like and replace them with bodegas and laundromats, which we will finance by mugging yuppies.
We’ll send those uppity restaurants like Red Farm and Mermaid Inn back downtown and bring back Marvin Gardens, Bagel Nosh, Williams BBQ, Chun Cha Fu and Big Nicks, and spring the H&H guy from jail and force him to start making bagels again for no more than 50c each. Then we’ll run Orwashers out of town, how dare they charge $8 for a loaf of bread. Bread!
Then we’ll bring the muggers and drug users back, turn Verdi Park back into Needle Park, and then start complaining again.
Just want to be sure I understand…the expansion of the Natural History Museum must be approved or the entire west side will be plunged into darkness and violence. Horse feathers.
I object to this expansion for a number of good reasons but it would appear that reason isn’t on offer. I have as much right to object to this expansion as you do to support it.
Just what are these good reasons? All I’ve heard are typical NIMBY complaints that are nonsense.
Education is not a vanity project.
” All I’ve heard are typical NIMBY complaints that are nonsense.”
selective reading?
Well, alrighty then, Mr. or Ms. NIMBYsaurus. Educational facilities are an anathema, if one tree must go, even if there are 750 acres of parkland a block away in Central Park.
This is a real exxageration. I haven’t heard one person (other than you) say anything like: “Educational facilities are an anathema, if one tree must go”
What I have heard is comments that the built environment must be created within the natural environment. The park and trees are not replaceable, so care and thought should go into these decisions.
Verdi Square was never Needle Park. That was actually the traffic island called Sherman Square located southerly below the old Subway entrance.
Sean…sorry but WRONG!!
I love people who correct people but don’t know what the heck they are talking about. Funny. Reminds me of a bunch of folks on this site. Oh boy!
“I love people who correct people” -steveboy
and we love you
what a wonderful world it will be
Let’s see.
Ephemeral New York: The musical history of 72nd Street’s Verdi Square (https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/the-musical-history-of-72nd-streets-verdi-square/): “In the 1960s and 1970s, it was Needle Park, populated by drug dealers and users (and memorialized in the 1971 Al Pacino flick The Panic in Needle Park).”
Gothamist: Rat Panic in Verdi Square (https://gothamist.com/2010/02/08/rat_panic_in_vermin_square.php):
“The rat problem in the Upper West Side’s Verdi Square, once called Needle Park, has gotten so bad that recently the Parks Dept. called for back-up.”
The New Yorker: Movie of the Week: “The Panic in Needle Park” (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/movie-week-panic-needle-park):
“The site in question in “The Panic in Needle Park,” Jerry Schatzberg’s 1971 feature film, starring Al Pacino and Kitty Winn, is the area around West Seventy-second Street and Broadway, in Manhattan—two little parks, Sherman Square and Verdi Square, that now mark a crossroads of prosperity. ”
Oh, and how about the West Side Rag (you’ve heard of it, I assume): SCHOOLS
RELIVE THE BAD OLD DAYS WITH ‘NEEDLE PARK’ SCREENING (https://www.westsiderag.com/2013/08/10/relive-the-bad-old-days-with-needle-park-screening ): “Needle Park was the nickname of Verdi Square and Sherman Square (around 72nd street) during the 1970’s, when heroin addicts would hang out in the area.”
I’ve been living here since Verdi Park was well known as “Needle Park”. Sounds like others hold the same identification.
But I guess everybody’s wrong, eh?
The park flow looks like a big improvement. What will happen to the part on top that is a water play area in the summer? Such a special play to go where you can look up into the big windows of the planetarium.
RK, have you considered writing for the Onion?
Thank you for the laugh, I needed it.
Earlier in the week, WSR reported on bullying at Beacon School.
Bullying in one form or another seems to be everywhere, including regularly on WSR – for example, comments which insult (“selfish small minded”) complete strangers who might have a difference of opinion.
This is how our kids learn that it is “normal” and “OK” to use denigrating or insulting language.
This kind of internet bullying is running rampant with kids b/c so much of it can be anonymous. Most people would not speak to someone this way if they were face to face.
I for one am excited about this expansion. My daughter uses the educational facilities at AMNH and they are currently overcrowded and dingy. The museum has education as part of its mission, therefore it’s only right that an educational wing should be a showcase of the museum. Also, having just got back from Chicago and seen Jeanne Gang’s work there, she is a standout architect who designs incredibly beautiful buildings. Brovo for selecting her as the architect.
I know change is hard, but this feels like a positive one to me.
And here is a great take on the expansion from the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/07/arts/design/natural-history-museums-expansion-part-dr-seuss-part-jurassic-park.html?smid=pl-share
steen,
FYI, dannyboy gets easily offended when people post links of other sites in WSR, so don’t take it personal…or should I? Oh well.
zulu,
Be honest (if possible). I only objected to the anti-semitic, racist etc links you posted 15 times.
I am a regular reader of both The NYT and the WSR. Anti-semitic and racist publications that promote hate are not for me. That’s more your thing.
Go shake that stick at somebody else’s face. I never posted any anti-Semitic anything.
do you post links to West Side Rag articles on The New York Times Comments Section?
Inventory of current space needs to be showcased. There are many offices for decades in the museum which are not being used as offices. Leaks in the roof, building not maintained properly so rooms closed off. There should be a consulted or someone to take full inventory of all office space and unused space, and this needs to be showed to the public.
You have to pay good money for those services, and all you get back is a fancy report showing you what you already know…just saying.