Bronx Museum of the Arts
1040 Grand Conc | also 1041 Carroll Place, 1040 Grand Concourse | Concourse | built 1961
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1961
Young Israel of the Concourse opens its new synagogue and community hall
The congregation Young Israel of the Concourse built this two-story building at the corner of East 165th Street as its synagogue and community hall, with plans filed in 1959. It opened in 1961 to a design by Simon B. Zelnik. By 1982 the building was vacant.
“Originally built as synagogue and community hall for Young Israel of the Concourse which opened in 1961…”
- 1983
The Bronx Museum of the Arts opens in the former synagogue
The museum had opened in 1971 in the rotunda of the Bronx County Courthouse. In 1982 the city bought the vacant synagogue for it, and the converted building, reworked with concrete, steel and glass for $2 million, opened to the public in May 1983 during Bronx Week. Its first show there was twentieth-century paintings, photographs and prints lent by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“In 1982, the city purchased a vacant synagogue at 165th Street and the Grand Concourse as a new location for the museum. The new location opened to the public in May 1983…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1987
The museum stages a career retrospective of Romare Bearden
In 1987 the museum drew attention with two exhibitions: a survey of the whole career of African American artist Romare Bearden, and a show on the then-new field of computer-generated art. The year before, it had begun a series showing the En Foco group of photographers, starting with a portfolio on the Puerto Rican experience in New York.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1988
Castro-Blanco, Piscioneri & Feder wrap the old synagogue in granite, metal and a glass atrium
A $5.8 million expansion and renovation designed by Castro-Blanco, Piscioneri & Feder was finished in 1988. It gave the building a new face of black granite and metal, long ribbon windows, and a three-story glass atrium on one corner that serves as the lobby. The design has been called awkward and dark, with cramped balconies and a corner entrance that feels like a suburban mall, and it has been criticized for having too little gallery space.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2012
Director Holly Block makes the museum free every day
Holly Block, formerly head of Art in General, became director in 2006. From March 29, 2012, the museum stopped charging admission on any day, where before only Fridays had been free, and attendance afterward grew fourfold. Block died in 2017, and Deborah Cullen took over as director in July 2018.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Bronx Museum of the ArtsWikipedia
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