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The splendid renovation of the grand old U.S. Custom House near Manhattan's southern tip merits civic applause. So does today's opening, inside the building, of the first installment of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian.
In the statue, a feather-headdressed Indian gazes with concern over the shoulder of a daunting protectress, an allegorical maiden who personifies not only the continent but also the whole bogus "White Man's Burden" ideology of imperialism. Meanwhile, the banner, an enlarged photograph of an Indian face, exudes the sort of sentimental sincerity one associates with simplistic television ads or political campaigns.
Despite these and other obstacles, the restoration and renovation of this landmark was accomplished with exemplary empathy and professionalism. Cass Gilbert, one of New York's Beaux-Arts stars, was the original architect - his later list of credits includes the close-by Woolworth Building, that still thrilling Gothic skyscraper, and the Supreme Court in Washington. While inserting contemporary electrical, plumbing and ventilating systems, restoration architect Denis Kuhn, of Ehrenkrantz & Eckstut Architects of New York, was able to resurrect much of Gilbert's subtle yet splendiferous touch - as much, one feels, as was possible.
The splendid renovation of the grand old U.S. Custom House near Manhattan's southern tip merits civic applause. So does today's opening, inside the building, of the first installment of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian.
That the building and the museum do not an ideal marriage make hardly comes as a surprise. Nor should the rocky - or at least the strange - beginning make much difference in the long run. As often happens, the two may grow together as time goes by, their differences becoming sources of strength rather than symbolic confusion. But for now, let us acknowledge that the union looks and feels rather forced.
The Custom House, which opened in 1907, is one of those big gestures American cities were given to make at the time - a massive "City Beautiful" monument with all the proud classical trappings, the New York equivalent of Washington's contemporaneous District Building. The Indian museum, created by Congress in 1989, is by contrast a product of a multicultural age.
Officially, the museum's Manhattan branch is the George Gustav Heye Center, named after the New York banker who, from 1903 until his death in 1957, amassed the vast collection of Native American artifacts that form the basis for the new museum. Still to come are the museum's Cultural Resources Center, due to open in Suitland in 1997, and its flagship building, due to open on the Mall in 2001.
One of the central purposes of the museum is to promote "public knowledge of and respect for the vital indigenous cultures of this hemisphere." One of the key intents of buildings such as the Custom House was to celebrate American success in the competitive, imperialistic world order of the day. Indigenous peoples played at best a subservient role in this view of the world.
Hence, wickedly ironic iconographic juxtapositions are almost to be expected. The weirdest is the happenstance pairing of sculptor Daniel Chester French's original allegorical statuary group representing the American continent (one of a series of four such statues) and the big museum banner strung between two classical columns at the building's elegant arched entryway.
In the statue, a feather-headdressed Indian gazes with concern over the shoulder of a daunting protectress, an allegorical maiden who personifies not only the continent but also the whole bogus "White Man's Burden" ideology of imperialism. Meanwhile, the banner, an enlarged photograph of an Indian face, exudes the sort of sentimental sincerity one associates with simplistic television ads or political campaigns.
This collision of cliches is not repeated exactly, but the feeling of symbolic discombobulation is pervasive. The keystones of the exterior window frames of the building's main floor, for instance, are sculpted human heads representing the world's racial types - based on outdated (to say the least) 19th-century ethnological theories.
Yet in a way these symbolic conflicts are only skin deep. Cities after all are palimpsests, built of layer upon layer of history. Here, two different layers are simply exposed in the very same spot. The fact that southern Manhattan was also the location of early European-Indian interchanges, favorable to you know who, also adds a piquant note.
The Custom House was abandoned by its original occupants in 1973, when the job of collecting taxes on imported goods was shifted to the nearby twin towers of the World Trade Center. Deterioration was so quick and so severe that in 1979 Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) pushed through a $29 million appropriation for immediate structural repairs.
But the issue of a fitting use remained. Eventually, in a sign of unfortunate Wall Street times, it was decided to put federal bankruptcy courts on the building's top floors, where they remain. Then came the Indian museum. It needed a New York home because New Yorkers, outraged at the thought of a total Smithsonian takeover of one of their hometown treasure chests, insisted that part of the collection be displayed in the city.
And, hey, opportunity knocked: The Custom House needed a dignified tenant, lower Manhattan needed a boost. The result was the kind of inspired, ad hoc trade-off that helps to save great old buildings and to give new life to old cities.
Some historic preservationists were opposed to the deal. They saw the museum as a threat to the building's authenticity as a landmark, to its long history as a custom house. They lost the fight, but won concessions that account for another conflict between building and museum: Except for the banner, you can hardly tell that there is a museum inside the Custom House.
This is especially apparent in the building's principal public space, an elliptical rotunda at its very center. With its delicate oval skylight, its restored Depression-era murals by Reginald Marsh and its clever decorative scheme - every little (and big) piece has a marine theme - this is a munificent public room of a kind we rarely build anymore. Back then, it was the order of the day.
But, occupied only by an immense, waist-high marble counter, echoing the room's oval shape, the room today is strangely empty. In fact, what was once a busy scene of customs agents and taxpayers now is downright spooky. It's awkward and even silly. One would never guess that it serves as the entry point to the museum's galleries. The only place where the old architecture and new museum meaningfully interact is in the old cashiers' office, now the museum's book- and computer-filled resource center, where the bronze cashier's grilles now function as handsome, and nicely haunting, room dividers.
Additional signs of Indian and other life definitely are called for - not signs, literally, but indications that the place is inhabited by people and things other than the ghosts of custom agents past. These would improve the rotunda and also the attractive park - the historic Bowling Green - that fronts the fabled building.
Despite these and other obstacles, the restoration and renovation of this landmark was accomplished with exemplary empathy and professionalism. Cass Gilbert, one of New York's Beaux-Arts stars, was the original architect - his later list of credits includes the close-by Woolworth Building, that still thrilling Gothic skyscraper, and the Supreme Court in Washington. While inserting contemporary electrical, plumbing and ventilating systems, restoration architect Denis Kuhn, of Ehrenkrantz & Eckstut Architects of New York, was able to resurrect much of Gilbert's subtle yet splendiferous touch - as much, one feels, as was possible.
The museum's galleries, surrounding the rotunda on three sides, were conceived as neutral containers, a sequence of vaulted rooms ingeniously constructed within the old building frame in order not to damage (or indeed even to touch) the original walls. Fitted out as a linear progression of closed-open spaces by James Volkert, the museum's deputy assistant director for exhibitions, the galleries are, of course, a different world.
In a sense the Heye Center is a trial run for the much larger museum to be built on the Mall, an experiment in new ways to present indigenous artifacts and cultures. But the architectural issues on the Mall obviously will be of a different sort and level of difficulty. There, the intention is to make the architecture part of the museum's message: The building is to respect the great greensward yet be identifiably Indian. Now that, indeed, will be a challenge.
CAPTION: The old Custom House on Manhattan's southern tip is now a branch of the National Museum of the American Indian.
Copyright The Washington Post Company Oct 30, 1994