At the presentation, the museum’s director, Lynn Rollins, showed architectural plans, developed in 2001-2002, and said that construction could start within three years. She acknowledged, however, that the museum had yet to raise any private funding for the $150 million project.
“We have a lot of money to raise, but I’m confident that we’ll be able to do it,” said Rollins, Governor Pataki’s senior advisor on women’s issues. The delay in fund-raising, she said, was caused by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the subsequent focus on redevelopment at ground zero.
Many on the committee did not like what they heard.
“I’ve spoken to every member of my committee and they are all—including myself—very disappointed in what was presented to us,” Linda Belfer, the committee’s chairwoman, reported to the full community board on May 16. “The committee is not at all opposed to the concept of a women’s museum. What we are disappointed in is the fact that it is six years later and little or nothing has been done yet.”
The committee will discuss the project at its meeting on June 8.
Bill Love, a committee member, told the Trib that he was skeptical about the museum’s prospects. “If they don’t get their funding in a reasonable amount of time, I don’t think they should be able to tie up the site for years,” he said. “We should look at other potential uses for the site.”
James Cavanaugh, the authority’s president, told the Trib in January that there was no deadline for the museum’s construction.
The Museum of Women’s History and the Leadership Center would present a history of women in America over the last 500 years and provide leadership training programs for girls and women. The 10-story, 125,000-square-foot building would also include an auditorium, conference rooms, library, roof garden and cafe.
Plans for the museum grew out of a commission appointed by Pataki in 1998, the 150th anniversary of the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y., to develop ideas to honor women’s achievements. Pataki announced the plan, and the designation of the site on Battery Place between First Place and Second Place, in April 2000. The state provided $2.2 million in startup funds.
But several Battery Park City Committee members last month questioned whether Pataki’s successor will support the project.
At the committee meeting with Rollins, CB1 member Barry Skolnick suggested that the museum share its building with a new school for Downtown children. Rollins, as well as a spokeswoman for the Battery Park City Authority, said that arrangement was not feasible.
The museum was not among the recipients of cultural grants awarded in March by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Rollins had said she hoped for the grant to make fundraising easier.
In a phone interview late last month, Rollins insisted that the museum will arrive as planned. Abandoning the project, she said, “would be a betrayal of all women who came before us and will come after us.”
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