0.16 Postscript  (Page 2/2)

During the course of the building repair work, the Society's museum remained closed and its library was open just three days a week. The skeletal staff focused on developing and installing the first exhibition that would announce the Society's reopening. On May 11, 1995, the Society opened its doors to the public with "Treasury of the Past." The exhibit, designed to highlight the Society's museum and library collections, explores two hundred years of American history from 1750 to 1950. Each year in that time period is represented by an item from the collec­tions, some of which are well known, like a Tiffany lamp or a Hudson River School painting, while other items speak of ordinary life, such as letters, house­hold items, and toys.

Unfortunately, in spite of the efforts of the Society to reach out to a broader audience, the reopening of the Society has not resulted in a dramatic increase in visitors. The Society has averaged approximately three thousand visitors per month since the opening. It would seem that, at least for the short term, there is little potential for the Society to generate significant amounts of income from admis­sions, gift shop sales, and other forms of earned income.

As had been the case prior to Gotbaum's arrival, financial pressures have con­tinued to be the top challenge for Society management. Gotbaum has committed the institution to balancing its budget and has cut expenditures substantially. The fiscal 1995 to 1996 budget calls for the Society to spend a total of just $5.2 mil­lion. Because of the Society's high fixed costs, such a frugal budget makes it very difficult for the Society to mount a regular series of exhibitions or to expand its public programming.

When the advisory committee chaired by Wilbur Ross issued its report in 1993, it asserted that the success of its recommendations depended on the gen­eration of funds from three sources: deaccessioning, real estate, and public ap­propriations. In the opinion of the committee, the plan could not be successful unless all three components were simultaneously and quickly achieved. The Society has implemented successfully a difficult deaccessioning plan. It has also received and managed a capital appropriation that has substantially improved the building and facilities. However, the Society has made little progress on the diffi­cult task of monetizing its real estate assets. In addition, thus far at least, govern­ment officials have been unable or unwilling to commit annual unrestricted operating support to the Society. Without these two components of the Ross com­mittee's plan, especially a continuing commitment from the public sector, the Society's future remains uncertain.

Despite the trials, Gotbaum and her staff have persevered. Their continu­ing efforts were rewarded when, on June 23, 1995, the Society received a $7.5 mil­lion five-year grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. This grant is to be used to install an open study/storage center on the fourth floor of the Society's facility on Central Park West. The installation of the Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture will not only make the Society's valuable collections more accessible to the public, it will also significantly reduce the annual expenditures on outside storage of museum-grade objects, which are approximately $500,000 per year. Furthermore, the size of the grant, the second largest ever made by the Luce Foundation, is a strong vote of confidence in the long-term importance of the Society and its collections.

Clearly, much has been accomplished. Yet there remains much to do. At the time of this writing, the Society still does not have the financial resources neces­sary to provide public services commensurate with the value and importance of its holdings. Finding a way to structure a sustainable balance between the scale of the collections and the resources available to maintain them—either through substantial new private and public support, or by making the collections more accessible to the public through creative relationships with other institutions—will likely be the primary topic in the next chapter of the Society's long struggle.