EDITORIAL: A museum rises in New York (10/20/96)

EDITORIAL

A museum rises in New York

Twenty years ago, on October 3, 1976, the Ukrainian National Women's League of America opened The Ukrainian Museum in New York City, in the heart of the city's Ukrainian community. The museum was located on the fourth and fifth floors of a building jointly owned by the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America and the UNWLA. It remains on that site today, but the difference is that today, as this editorial is being written, a spacious new museum building is rising on East Sixth Street.

The 1976 opening marked the culmination of what was described in the news story about that landmark event as "the culmination of decades-long planning and work by the UNWLA." Decades indeed, for as the UNWLA's 1996 convention book notes, "the idea and acquisitions [for the museum] began in the early 1930s." The inaugural exhibit in 1976 was of a sampling of Ukrainian folk art, but from the very start the idea was to expand the museum's holdings to include fine art and a historical collection.

In 1986, 10 years after its opening, the museum celebrated, reflected and planned for the future. That future it was noted, included a new building to adequately house the museum's already extensive collections, which had far outgrown its relatively modest quarters on Second Avenue. That very year, The Ukrainian Museum purchased a large industrial building located on East Sixth Street, between Second and Third avenues.

The late Dr. Bohdan Cymbalisty, a leading supporter of The Ukrainian Museum, who served as president of the board of trustees, wrote in 1986 about a modern new building as an essential next step for the museum: "At the end of our first decade, we are facing an ambitious new goal. ... The cost will be formidable, but we must undertake this project now. ... Let us embark on this new epoch of The Ukrainian Museum with an act of faith - faith that the Ukrainian community will understand the important role of our institution and appreciate its potential for growth, faith that Ukrainians will build a museum that reflects their dreams and aspirations, and defines their self-perception and self-respect."

The talk in 1986 was of a museum - a showcase of things Ukrainian - that would encompass folk and fine arts, photographs, a music collection featuring folk instruments and recordings, and archives that range from documents to private correspondence, from posters and playbills to philately and numismatics.

Now, 20 years after its founding, The Ukrainian Museum includes that and more. The new facility that is rapidly rising on Sixth Street will include space for exhibition galleries, a library, lecture/film/reception hall, workshops, work areas for the preparation of exhibits and collections, offices, a gift shop, a cafe and other public areas, as well as ample storage space. The design provides much flexibility for the adaptation of space to fit needs as they arise.

During this 20th anniversary year of The Ukrainian Museum, it must be underlined that this unique institution is succeeding in its goals: to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret objects of artistic and history significance relating to Ukrainian life and culture. It does this through its permanent exhibits and special exhibitions, and via traveling shows that have enabled diverse audiences in diverse locales to appreciate the Ukrainian heritage. (And we should add, parenthetically, through periodic articles, accompanied by photographs, published in this paper to highlight new exhibitions be they devoted to documenting the history of Ukrainian Americans, revealing the significance in Ukrainian traditions of ritual breads, or focusing on the works of a contemporary artist.)

In its new building The Ukrainian Museum promises to do even more as it looks to cooperative projects with other institutions, and greater interaction with cultural and artistic communities in this country and beyond, and as it pledges "to preserve the values and traditions of the past" as well as "to identify the accomplishments of the present." What remains, once again, is as Dr. Cymbalisty noted, for the Ukrainian community to understand and appreciate its role, and, as a result to contribute to the fulfillment of a decades-long idea that is coming to life on the New York's Lower East Side.