Out & About
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 striking thing about the Winter Ball of the Museum of the City of New York was not how elegant everyone looked at this exclusive party. Rather, it was the strong feeling that the museum is hitting an exciting stride.
A modernization of the building, with city and private funding, is under way, creating climate-controlled space for its archives. Membership is up 20% and the number of high-level donors in the Alexander Hamilton Circle has doubled.
The leader of the transformation is the president and director of the museum, Susan Henshaw Jones, who took the job in 2003.
At the ball, sponsored by one of New York’s most ardent cultural patrons, Oscar de la Renta, the clearest sign that the museum’s moment has arrived was in the exhibits. Romantic photographs by Samuel Gottscho grouped under the title “The Mythic City,” and others illustrating “The New York Night,” capture the romance, the glamour of the city – and certainly made the perfect backdrop for the chic New Yorkers assembled on this chilly night.
True, it presents an idealized New York, but the museum has every right to celebrate the city and its affluence. And it’s not the only story the exhibits tell. Another exhibit focuses on New York’s comeback under Mayor Koch, a useful not-so-long-ago history lesson.
