Museum of the City of New York

The Museum of the City of New York has decided to quietly dispose of its Rockefeller Rooms to make way for a modernization of its Fifth Avenue building, The Art Newspaper reports. For 70 years, the two period rooms from the Manhattan townhouse of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller have been the museum’s main attractions. The dressing room is likely to go the Metropolitan Museum of Art which is currently reinstalling its suite of American period rooms, slated to reopen in January 2009.  read more »

The Real Estate is going for a Robert Moses trifecta this morning. This item's about one of his newer critics, Bronx community organizer Majora Carter, who dared criticize Mayor Bloomberg's development policies and who received a warm response from the media at the Feb. 1 opening of the Moses exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York.

The notice above, received via e-mail from Ms. Carter herself, says it all--including the fact that the museum is showing itself pretty receptive to airing all sides of the story.

- Matthew Schuerman

Ina Caro, the wife, research assistant, typist and confidant of Moses biographer Robert Caro writes in an e-mail:

Dear Friends, I have been scolded for not letting some of you know that Bob was speaking at the Museum of the City of New York last Sunday, so..... the speech "Reflections on Robert Moses" is being televised next Sunday, February 18, on C-Span 2, at 7 and at 10. Ina

A must for all Moses geeks.

- Matthew Schuerman

Thursday night's panel on "Lessons of Robert Moses" at the Museum of the City of New York opened with the patina that the man did, at least, get things done--and that we have figured out how to do so without breaking as many eggs as Mr. Moses did.

But this Bloombergian consensus was shattered by Majora Carter, the one African-American on the panel, the one woman, and the one representative of "the community perspective" (she is executive director of Sustainable South Bronx). Ms. Carter, when innocently asked by the architecture critic for Bloomberg L.P. for her opinion on all the grand-scale planning going on in the city now, took a deep breath, paused for effect, and began:

"This is the first day of Black History Month. I am struck by the irony of the efforts to rehabilitate the image of a man who has done such terrible things to black people...."

Ms. Carter went on for 10 minutes, detailing how the destruction of the Bronx, where she grew up, was still felt today--and was still continuing today, arguing:

"The Bloomberg administration should be commended for its commitment to environmental justice.... However, those are exceptions to the rule..."

She concluded by criticizing the Bloomberg adminstration's plan to put a jail in the South Bronx.

It must have been hard to be Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, who was sitting just four seats away.

- Matthew Schuerman

In an article called "The Brooklyn Bridge as a Monument," published in Harper's Weekly in May 1883,  read more »