On April 12, 1988, New York City Mayor Edward Koch issued a press release announcing plans for the Museum of the American Indian to relocate its exhibition space from Audubon Terrace in upper Manhattan to the U.S. Custom House at Bowling Green in lower Manhattan.   

The press release followed more than a decade of competing proposals and schemes to save the faltering museum. Although the final agreement transferred a significant portion of the holdings to a new National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., under the aegis of the Smithsonian, it gave the collection a significant presence in New York as a branch of the new Museum, formally known as the George Gustav Heye Center.

In recognition of Native American Heritage Month, For the Record looks at resources in the Municipal Archives and Municipal Library that tell the story of how Mayor Koch and other leaders kept an important cultural institution in the City.

George Gustav Heye, an engineer and financier, founded the Museum in 1916 to house objects he collected representing all the native peoples of the Americas. Also known as the Heye Foundation, the Museum of the American Indian (MAI) opened in 1922 on Audubon Terrace and West 155th Street in Harlem.

From the beginning, its distance from other cultural institutions in Manhattan curtailed attendance. Furthermore, the Audubon Terrace building was insufficient to display the holdings—less than one percent of the collection, according to some estimates. The bulk of the material was housed in a storage building in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx.

By the 1970s, the MAI problems became critical. According to a clipping from the Daily News in the Municipal Library’s vertical file, dated February 16, 1975, the Museum “had been operating in the red since 1970.” The article quoted Museum Director Frederick Dockstader: “. . . unless the institution gets more space and more local support soon, it will probably leave.” Dockstader added: “When I first came to New York in 1960, I never realized how provincial New Yorkers really were. They live within a 20-block area and seldom venture beyond in search of cultural enlightenment.”

By the mid-1980s, suffering further declines in attendance, the Museum took action on their plan to move from Audubon Terrace. To document this chapter in the saga, researchers can turn to the records of Mayor Edward Koch (1978-1989). Most mayoral record collections are arranged in three series: subject files, departmental correspondence, and general correspondence. However, there are variations unique to individual mayors. For example, Mayor LaGuardia filed his correspondence with federal officials as a separate series. Mayor Lindsay’s collection includes “confidential” subject files maintained as a separate series. Clerks filing Mayor Koch’s records merged his departmental correspondence and subject files into one series. Another unique feature of the Koch material, of great benefit to historians, is a subject and name index created by the archivists who processed his correspondence.

Searching the Koch inventory for references to the MAI resulted in five citations between 1985 and 1989. The first item is a New York Times article dated July 4, 1985, forwarded to Koch. Headlined “Indian Museum Shelves Negotiations with Perot,” the article quoted MAI officials saying they had suspended negotiations with H. Ross Perot, the Dallas computer executive seeking to relocate the museum to Texas. Instead they proposed to merge the museum with the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City. 

In October 1985, Robert J. Vanni, Counsel at the Department of Cultural Affairs prepared and submitted a detailed report to Mayor Koch on the status of the MAI. In the “Historical Background” section of his report, Vanni pointed out that New York State Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz had brought a suit against the Museum board in 1975 for mismanagement. Under a consent decree the board was dissolved and the museum placed under direction of the Attorney General’s office. Vanni also described the proposed merger with the AMNH. Despite a pledge of $13 million from the City and State to underwrite construction of an addition to the AMNH along Central Park West, the MAI Board eventually rejected the idea, saying it would “terminate” their independence and would not provide sufficient space for the holdings. Vanni also reported on an alternative proposal that had been floated by New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan that would re-locate the Museum to the U.S. Custom House in Lower Manhattan.

The Library’s vertical files pick up the next phase of the saga. According to several articles in 1986, not all area political leaders supported the move to the Customs House, notably, New York’s other Senator, Alphonse D’Amato. “Absolutely not,” said D’Amato’s assistant Robin Salmon, when asked whether the senator would back to the move to the Custom House, according to a Daily News article dated August 15, 1986.  

Negotiations continued through the next year. On July 17, 1987, the Daily News quoted Senator Moynihan saying that the city’s chance of keeping the MAI here is “slipping away” and urged support for his proposal to move the collection into the Custom House. He added that the Smithsonian Institution “wishes to abscond” to Washington with the “Indian treasure house.”

Two weeks later, reporter Gail Collins, then writing for the Daily News, neatly summarized the situation: “The real fight here is a matter of politics and prestige. Who gets to keep the stuff in the storehouse? Who will be blamed for losing the largest collection of American Indian artifacts in the universe?” (July 31, 1987.) 

By mid-August 1987, it looked like the matter was settled. The New York Times headlined “Koch Shifts on New Site for Museum; Backs Custom House for Indian Exhibits.” According to the article, Mayor Koch and Senator D’Amato both said they had shifted their positions because of “concern that the museum might leave the city.”

Except, as the article continued, “Senator Daniel K. Inouye, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, proposed that the museum be moved to the nation’s capital and become affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution.”

Wrangling over the fate of the MAI and its collections continued into 1988. In January 1988, Mary Schmidt Campbell, the Commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs forwarded to Mayor Koch copies of letters she received from a dozen leaders of New York area cultural institutions including the Brooklyn Museum and the Guggenheim, all expressing support for the “Moynihan” plan and asking Senator Inouye to drop his opposition to maintaining the collection in New York.  

Finally, in April 1988, political leaders reached a compromise and Mayor Koch issued his celebratory press release.

The most recent clipping in the Municipal Library vertical file concludes the story: “A Heritage Reclaims – From Old Artifacts, American Indians Shape a New Museum.” The New York Times article reported on the opening of the New York branch of the National Museum of the American Indian, on October 30, 1994, at the newly renovated U.S. Custom House. As per terms of the final agreement there are three locations that house the collection: the George Gustav Heye Center in the Custom House, the National Museum of the American Indian on the mall in Washington, D.C., and a research center in Suitland, Maryland.

Look for future For the Record articles that highlight resources in the Municipal Archives and Municipal Library to explore topics related to Native Americans in New York City.