Whitney Mulls Downtown Spot
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The Whitney Museum of American Art is considering abandoning its current expansion plan –– a 178-foot tower designed by Renzo Piano that would connect by glass bridges to its original, 1966 Marcel Breuer building. Instead, it is considering a new satellite downtown, at the entrance to the High Line at Gansevoort and Washington streets. Until recently, the Dia Art Foundation planned to construct a museum there.
The Whitney’s spokeswoman, Jan Rothschild, said the museum’s board had made no decision yet but was trying to figure out which location would give the museum the space it needs. “There are several sites still under consideration, not only that site,” she said — referring to the one at Gansevoort and Washington ––”although that’s a great possibility,” she added. The museum would need city approval to build there.
In the Whitney’s uptown location, on Madison Avenue between 74th and 75th streets, the museum can only expand vertically, as the design for the tower dramatically expressed. A move downtown would allow the Whitney instead to create large, horizontal galleries.
The Whitney received the schematic plan for its expansion –– which includes not only gross square footage, but things like mechanical systems and staircases –– in late summer, and the board began considering other sites soon after, Ms. Rothschild said. The museum has also abandoned two previous plans for on-site expansion, one by Michael Graves in 1985 and another by Rem Koolhaas in 2003.
The Dia Art Foundation, which recently lost its director, Michael Govan, to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, informed the city last week that it would not build a museum on the High Line. A founder of Friends of the High Line, a nonprofit group that spurred and is overseeing the High Line’s conversion into a public park, Robert Hammond, said he was disappointed about the Dia’s change of plans, but that the location is still a great one for an arts institution.
“The main thing is, we just think it is a great opportunity, that corner,” he said. “You have the energy of the West Village and the meatpacking district, connecting all the way up to the art galleries in Chelsea. That’s something Michael Govan always talked about ––that it could be one of the most exciting corners in New York City. We think that potential still holds true, whether it’s the Whitney there or someone else. We’re waiting to see what the powers that be decide.”