As a former Registrar of Collections of the New-York Historical Society,
I am dismayed by the recent news.  The N-YHS has had a history of
financial struggles and in the years that I have been away from it, I had
hoped that the Board of Trustees and the Museum Administrators would find
a way to bring one of New York's treasures back to a full life.  I can
only continue to hope for this as I wait for more information, from
Robbin and other colleagues on museum-l, and, yet more stories in the
Times.  Perhaps NYU will become the hero in this.
 
The N-YHS is truly a treasure.  Its museum collections represent some of
the finest examples of the work of artists and craftsmen in New York and
the United States throughout its collecting period.  Some of these will
be familiar to many of you, such as the painters of the Hudson River
school, the work of Asher B. Durand, Bierstadt, and others, of course.
The richness of  its archaeological collections might surprise you as
would the intertwined relationships among the collections of the
Society's archives, library and museum.  These collections must continue
to be regarded as a whole.  The Society has  (at least drafts of) a
collections management policy, a mission statement and a collecting
policy that may be employed to keep the objects, books, prints,
manuscripts, historical papers, paintings, and artifacts that relate
specifically to the history of New York City and New York State in the
New-York Historical Society.
 
Thanks again to Robbin for keeping us posted.
 
Kathy Jones-Garmil
Documentation Manager, Harvard Peabody Museum