BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | First Lady Michelle Obama, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Whitney scion Flora Miller Biddle were among the speakers at the dedication of the new Whitney Museum of American Art last Thursday.
The ceremony was held on Gansevoort St., the $442 million, 220,000-square-foot new museum’s home in the heart of the Meatpacking District.
“I took a brief tour and I fell in love with the building,” Obama said. “This was the most beautiful freight elevator I’ve ever ridden on. Just about every space in this building is magnificent.”
Robert Hurst, the museum’s co-chairperson, noted, “Rarely does one have the opportunity to build a museum from the ground up in New York. … This defining location places the Whitney among the city’s cultural icons.”
Renzo Piano, the architect who created the massive “floating ship,” spoke over the occasional din of traffic from the nearby West Side Highway.
“Mama mia!… What a joy. Welcome to the brand-new piazza,” he said. “Some like to call it the lobby. I’m Italian, I call it the piazza. It’s a place of meeting — it’s a place of city life. …”
The piazza is the 8,500-square-foot public plaza beneath the museum’s dramatic, cantilevered entranceway.
“I wanted to make it fly,” Piano said of the design of the building, which sits on enormous support poles, suspended over the glass-enclosed first floor, as if on air. However, Piano quipped, “It’s 28,000 tons — so it doesn’t fly.
“Art is freedom,” he said. “Especially American art — a bit wild.”
As a result, the building must mirror that feeling, he said: “It’s got to be brave, flying…a bit unpolite.”
The museum’s 18,000-square-foot fifth floor is the largest column-free museum exhibition space in New York.
“I love making buildings, but I especially like making buildings for public use,” Piano said. “Art and beauty make us better people. Beauty builds curiosity and desire. … I’m pretty sure that beauty will save the world.
“Thank you for coming,” he concluded. “The building is yours.”
Adam Weinberg, the Whitney’s director, said, “People are calling the building ‘generous’ — airy, open, light, but comfortable and warm.”
Mayor de Blasio dubbed the dedication “a signal moment.”
“This is an extraordinary day for New York City, for this nation, for art,” he said.
Eighty-four years and four locations later, the museum has returned to the neighborhood where it all began. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, an artist, art patron, collector and member of one of America’s wealthiest families, started the museum back during the Great Depression. Back then it was known as the Whitney Studio Club and was located in her apartment on MacDougal Alley. She would hold salons there.
Biddle, her granddaughter, received a standing ovation before she spoke.
“The need for art has never been greater,” she said, “for art can lift us and tell us who we are and who we need to be.”
Both Obama and de Blasio emphasized that art and culture — and the museum — are for everyone, and for all the city’s children and students.
Weinberg praised de Blasio for last year increasing the budget for arts funding in the city’s schools by $23 million.
“We are fortunate to have a mayor that shows a belief that art is a right not a privilege,” he said.
The mayor added, “Our first lady knows that the arts are essential to the development of our young people.”
Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, Obama recalled, she didn’t think places like the Whitney were for her. Too many children today still feel that way, she said.
She and President Obama have strived to open up the White House to the people, she said, adding that the Whitney is “sending the same message.”
Even a little exposure can go a long way.
“One visit, one performance, one touch — and who knows? — you can change a life,” Obama said. “You can find the next Edward Hopper — or who knows? — the next Barack Obama.”
After the ceremony, Weinberg invited everyone inside for a glass of champagne. Attesting to the new Whitney’s community-mindedness, the crowd was full of local politicians, community board members and neighborhood fixtures.
“I think it’s a beautiful building, iconic and now an anchor for the neighborhood,” said Councilmember Corey Johnson, “nestled between the High Line, the meatpackers, Hudson River Park and Westbeth.”
“It’s great,” said Tobi Bergman, chairperson of Community Board 2. “It’s going to be a real change for the Village — a good change for the Village.”
Jonathan Kuhn, director of Arts and Antiquities for the Parks Department and a West Village resident, said, “From the beginning, I think the architect set the tone — to make it about humanity…and being a friendlier face than many of our cultural institutions. It starts at the top with Adam Weinberg.”
State Senator Brad Hoylman said he’s glad his 4-year-old daughter will have the Whitney right nearby as she grows up.
“I find it so appropriate that the Whitney is coming back Downtown,” he said. “And to have this asset Downtown is going to mean so much for the community — and my family.”
A former C.B. 2 chairperson, he said that, from the start, the Whitney had always worked closely with the community board, keeping it abreast of its plans for the project.
John Jobbagy, an owner of J.T. Jobbagy meats in the “meat co-op” building on the same block as the museum, said of the new Whitney, “Fabulous. An incredible addition to the neighborhood.”
He said he had noticed an increase in foot traffic down Washington St. in the weeks leading up to the museum’s opening.
“I can’t wait to get my membership,” said Assemblymember Deborah Glick.
Arianna Huffington, editor in chief of the Huffington Post, was also among the upbeat crowd mingling in the lobby after the dedication.
“Oh, absolutely lovely,” she said of the new Whitney. “As someone who lives in Soho, I love what they do for the neighborhood, and opening it up to children… .”
The museum officially opened the following day, Fri., May 1. Admission is $22. (Seniors/students, $18. Under age 18 and members, free). Annual membership is about $80.
