The Museums Council of New York City met yesterday evening at the
American Museum of Natural History.  It was one of the best meetings
that I've ever attended.  A quick report follows(with the ulterior
motive of getting people who have not come to meetings before to come to
the next meeting on March 26 at Fraunces Tavern.)

The Museums Council of New York City is an association of virtually all
of New York's not-for-profit museums. We currently have 86 member
institutions and are constantly reviewing new institutions for
membership. The group has been in existence since the 1950's, and at
this past meeting Betty Scholz (Chairman Emeritus at Brooklyn Botanic
Garden) told me that she had been Chairman of MCNYC in the mid 1960's.

 We meet every six weeks or so at a different museum in the City,
usually with a gallery tour, drinks, and dinner (we charge
$25/attendee). The Museums Council produces a directory of its member
institutions listing upcoming exhibitions, admissions information, and a
directory of staff (in the case of the larger museums, only senior staff
are listed.)  The Directory is for sale for $5.00 + 1.00/order for
postage. Member institutions also receive a limited number of passes
which admit their staff and a guest to other institutions within the
group for the entire year.  In short, it is a wonderful organization,
quite informal but very effective at getting museum staff off their
duffs and into other museums here in NYC, Museum Central.

This past meeting at AMNH gave members a private viewing of the Nature
of Diamonds exhibition and a talk by the exhibition's curator, followed
by quite a lavish dinner in the Astor Turret Room. This is the empty
round room in the otherwise dense new dinosaur halls at AMNH.  We were
limited to 60 participants, and the meeting was "sold out."

The Nature of Diamonds is a curator's (in the traditional sense of a
content expert with academic credentials) exhibition, really
substantive, and anything but the "glitter" show that one might have
expected.  I'm sure that curator, who is a geologist (his name escapes
me unfortunately) felt that he edited out 99% of what he would like the
public to know about his field. Even so, it has more information in
text, graphics, computer generated images, old film footage, and
interactives, than any 10 exhibitions that I've seen recently.

Though there was some debate about how well all this text worked, with
some people thinking that it was just too dense, I personally loved it
and thought it was an ambitious exhibition about a subject which might
have lent itself to being just kind of glamorous.  And glamorous it was
as well, with the highlights for me being two objects: Peter the Great's
crown, studded with diamond, which must have weighed 40 lbs if it
weighed an ounce, and an exquisite 1st century image carved in rough
sapphire (using diamonds to do the carving, tho how they know that...).
Also, I'm told, the world's second largest diamond.

There were too many other wonderful elements in the exhibition to list.
It was designed, beautifully, by an in house team that included Gerhard
Schlansky.  I'm told that it is going to travel, but I have no idea
where to.  Anyone within travelling distance of any of the venues has to
see this exhibition.

So, the next meeting of MCNYC is at Fraunces Tavern on March 26th. The
exhibition there will be about New York City after the departure of the
Dutch and before Independence. Can't promise it will be as dramatic as
AMNH, but it should be compelling on a different scale (I have thoughts
of mulled wine, punch, shepherds pie...)

Hope to see some of you there.

Eric Siegel
Chairman
The Museums Council of New York City
Director, Planning & Program Development
New York Hall of Science