Mmuseumm
368 Broadway | Civic Center | built 1880
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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.
- 1880
John B. Snook designs a five-story neo-Grec store and loft building for the trustees of Catherine L. Wolfe
The building at 368 Broadway went up in 1880 for Catherine L. Wolfe's trustees, replacing a masonry store on the lot. John B. Snook, whom the Landmarks Preservation Commission calls a prominent architect of lower Manhattan's commercial buildings, designed it in the neo-Grec style: five stories, about 25 feet wide on Broadway, running 150 feet back to Cortlandt Alley, with brick above the first story and a sheet-metal cornice.
“Constructed in 1880 for the trustees of Catherine L. Wolfe, it was designed by John B. Snook…”
- 1920
In the 1920s the Yawman & Erbe Manufacturing Company uses 368 Broadway as a store, factory and showroom
The Landmarks Preservation Commission's report on the Tribeca East Historic District records that in the 1920s the Yawman & Erbe Manufacturing Company occupied 368 Broadway. The firm used the five-story building, which had been put up for Catherine L. Wolfe's trustees in 1880, as a store, a factory and a showroom.
- 1992
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates the Tribeca East Historic District, which includes this building
On December 8, 1992, the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Tribeca East Historic District, which covers 197 buildings and four undeveloped lots roughly between Canal and Worth Streets. The district also extends past Broadway, between Franklin and Canal, so that it includes the Cortlandt Alley side. The report says its character comes from blockfronts of ornate store and loft buildings that reflect the area's role as the center of the city's dry goods trade.
- 2012
Alex Kalman and the Safdie brothers open Mmuseumm in a former elevator shaft off Cortlandt Alley
Mmuseumm opened in 2012, founded by Alex Kalman and the Safdie brothers. Its first space, Mmuseumm 1, fills a former elevator shaft in Cortlandt Alley between Franklin and White Streets and measures about 36 square feet, so visitors look in through peepholes in the doors, which keeps the displays visible around the clock. The museum calls its approach "Object Journalism" and organizes its shows into seasons, a format that grew out of its original summer schedule.
“Mmuseumm was founded in 2012 by Alex Kalman and the Safdie brothers.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2012
Alex Kalman is offered an unused freight elevator shaft by his landlord, and the museum starts out as plain "Museum"
Mmuseumm's six-by-six-foot elevator shaft came to founder Alex Kalman by chance: he kept an office upstairs, and the building's landlord offered him the shaft when it fell out of use. For its first couple of seasons the museum was simply called Museum; Kalman later added an "m" at the front to play up the absurdity, and another at the end for symmetry. As of 2019 it opened each year from April through November.
Source: fortune.com
- 2013
Visitors wait three at a time to see fake vomit and Al Goldstein's gold sneakers at the elevator-shaft museum
By late 2013 the 60-square-foot museum in the former elevator shaft had a line of visitors, because only three could fit inside at once. A volunteer docent entertained the waiting crowd, and exhibits included fake vomit, potato chip bags from around the world and gold laminated sneakers once owned by the porn magnate Al Goldstein. The founders also said they held the shoe thrown at George W. Bush in Iraq in 2008. Admission was free, and three peepholes in the metal doors let people look in on weekdays.
Source: latimes.com
- 2014
Mmuseumm opens its third summer season with 20 new exhibits, from North Korean souvenirs to Saddam Hussein's watches
Steven Heller wrote in The Atlantic that Mmuseumm opened for a third consecutive summer season in May 2014. Founders Alex Kalman, Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie listed 20 new exhibits, among them North Korean souvenirs, Saddam Hussein's watches and Saudi Arabian pool toys that had been censored. Collectors who contributed included the radio program RadioLab, the designer Tucker Viemeister and Kalman's mother, the illustrator Maira Kalman. Kalman gave the house rules as no art and no sentimentality.
Source: Internet Archive
- 2015
Alex Kalman's replica of his grandmother's closet, shown at Mmuseumm in 2015, later travels to the Met
"Sarah Berman's Closet," a 2015 Mmuseumm exhibit, reproduced Alex Kalman's grandmother's closet as it stood when she died at 84. It was shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017 and then at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles in 2018. As of 2019 it stood as a public monument outside the National Museum of American Jewish History on Philadelphia's Independence Mall.
Source: fortune.com
- 2016
A 14-year-old's paper model of Aleppo debuts at Mmuseumm and later travels to London and Stockholm
"My Aleppo" is a paper model of the Syrian city, four feet on each side, made by Mohammed Qutaish, then 14, as he imagined Aleppo during the war. It debuted at Mmuseumm in 2016, traveled to the Skirball Cultural Center in 2017 and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2018, and by 2019 was on display at ArkDes in Stockholm.
Source: fortune.com
- 2020
With the pandemic keeping it closed, Mmuseumm publishes a 300-page catalog of its planned 2020 shows
Closed by the coronavirus pandemic, Mmuseumm's team printed a 300-page Jumbo Catalog of objects from the 15 exhibitions they had planned for 2020, all on the theme of power. Items ranged from clock faces drawn at 6:05 by people with dementia to receipts for last meals requested by death row inmates in Georgia. Co-founder Alex Kalman said the lights stay on so visitors can see the shows from outside around the clock and phone a toll-free number for the audio guide.
Source: observer.com
Further reading
- MmuseummWikipedia
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