Living With the Past, Looking Towards the Future for MAS
The Times ran an interesting story about the future of the Municipal Arts Society. (MAS). They are the venerable preservation organization, founded in 1893, that saved the Jefferson Market Courthouse, helped establish the City Planning Commission in 1938, and the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1965. They rallied such luminaries as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to save…
The Times ran an interesting story about the future of the Municipal Arts Society. (MAS). They are the venerable preservation organization, founded in 1893, that saved the Jefferson Market Courthouse, helped establish the City Planning Commission in 1938, and the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1965. They rallied such luminaries as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to save Grand Central Station, and successfully stopped the Zuckerman towers that would have darkened the West Side, at Columbus Circle. They also support smaller neighborhood preservation movements throughout the city. Lately, however, they’ve been too quiet on the big issues that affect the city now, such as the Atlantic Yards project, and Coney Island development, and in general, have been rendered irrelevant dinosaurs by budget problems, a lack of new membership, and a board with no term limits. Hopefully, things are about to change.
A new president, Vin Cipolla, 53, a successful media and technology entrepreneur, has been elected president, and he’s immediately moving the organization to cheaper headquarters, initiating other fiscal reforms, and establishing term limits for board members. MAS plans to concentrate on fewer projects, become more pro-active, and once again take its place as one of our more effective agents for historic preservation. We hope they continue to see their mission to aid and support neighborhood preservation organizations, such as the Crown Heights North Association (CHNA), the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council (PHNDC), and community ventures like the Brooklyn Flea, all of which seek to improve the borough in our own small ways.
New Leader Seeks Stronger Voice [NY Times]
Reality Check Rendering of Yards from MAS [Brownstoner]
Municipal Arts Society Honors the Brooklyn Flea [Brownstoner]Prospect Heights Landmarking [Brownstoner]
q man, my beef was with the lectures. The folding chairs, the bad sound set up, the fact that you were usually out in the hallway with not even as much as a video screen of the podium. Definitely batty old school.
I stopped going to the lectures. The terrible layout and inept tech was too annoying.
Oh, and that’s another thing. The book store could never look up whether or not you were a member, so unless you walked around with your membership card–don’t I have enough crap in my wallet?–you forfeited the member discount at Urban Books.
And while I am venting, the shows were hung in the exhibition area for too short a period. I almost never got to one before it closed. I live and work in Brooklyn; I don’t get to midtown all that much so an MAS exhibit meant a special trip.
I think the move to new offices (I’m not sure how “cheap” the new space is, I hear not very) is a good thing. A physical move can set the stage for other changes.
I will miss the bookstore though. Urban Books was a connoisseur’s garden of earthly delights.
I always meant to take one of those tours. Thanks for posting these articles.
You can count me as a former dues-paying member who eventually couldn’t see the point of writing a check. Discounts on tours I never took and four boring newsletters a year? And whenever MAS got involved in projects I was working on, they were prima donnas who sucked all the air out of the room, often to little eventual effect. Cipolla has a big job in front of him.