El Museo del Barrio (Heckscher Building)
1230 5th Avenue | also 1 East 104th Street | East Harlem | built 1922
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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.
- 1922
August Heckscher opens a children's center on Fifth Avenue at 104th Street
Industrialist August Heckscher set up the Heckscher Foundation for Children in 1921 and gave it this Fifth Avenue blockfront between 104th and 105th Streets, where its building opened in 1922. It housed children and offered dance, orchestra and swimming programs, a kindergarten, a library and a theater, all run for more than 50 years under Ruth Smadbeck.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1977
El Museo del Barrio moves into the Heckscher Building
Artist and educator Raphael Montañez Ortiz founded El Museo del Barrio in 1969, answering Puerto Rican and African American parents and activists who wanted programs that reflected their heritage. After years in storefronts on Third and Lexington Avenues, the museum moved into the Heckscher Building at 1230 Fifth Avenue in 1977 and became a founding member of Museum Mile the next year.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1978
El Museo del Barrio becomes a founding member of Museum Mile
A year after moving into the former Heckscher Foundation building on Fifth Avenue, El Museo del Barrio joined neighboring institutions as a founding member of Museum Mile when it launched in 1978. The Fifth Avenue address broadened the museum's audience, and non-Latino visitors grew to roughly forty percent of attendance.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1995
El Museo renovates the Heckscher theater and renames it Teatro Heckscher
Between 1995 and 2000 El Museo del Barrio renovated the theater inside 1230 Fifth Avenue and renamed it Teatro Heckscher. The building was designed in 1921 by Maynicke & Franke for August and Anna Heckscher, who commissioned it as headquarters of their Heckscher Foundation for Children. It was later given to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children to serve as a shelter for abused and neglected children.
Source: 6tocelebrate.org
- 2002
A Frida Kahlo show draws more visitors than a usual year and changes El Museo's profile
El Museo's 2002 exhibition on Frida Kahlo brought in more visitors than the museum usually saw in a whole year. The show helped change how the museum was perceived and led to its first director who was not Puerto Rican. Even so, the museum still had only a single floor of its Fifth Avenue building, which it occupied together with a school and several private organizations.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2008
El Museo begins restoring the storybook tile murals on the ground floor
From 2008 to 2012 El Museo del Barrio restored the tile murals on the ground floor of the former Heckscher Foundation building at 1230 Fifth Avenue. The murals show storybook tales and children at play. The restoration came after the museum had spent 1995 to 2000 renovating the building's theater.
Source: 6tocelebrate.org
- 2019
Architect David Katz completes a restoration of the fairytale theater
Architect David Katz led a nearly five-million-dollar restoration of the Heckscher-era children's theater inside El Museo del Barrio, finishing by March 2019 after starting the previous spring. The project repaired water-damaged fairytale murals, rewired circus-themed light fixtures, and installed an orchestra-pit elevator, reviving chandeliers that had sat in storage for two decades.
Source: commercialobserver.com
Further reading
- El Museo del BarrioWikipedia
- El Museo del BarrioPlace Matters
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