Hudson River Museum

Last updated
Hudson River Museum
Hudson River Museum (53566424013).jpg
Hudson River Museum
Established1919
Location511 Warburton Avenue
Yonkers, New York
Coordinates 40°57′14″N73°53′47″W / 40.9540°N 73.8963°W / 40.9540; -73.8963
Type Art museum, Planetarium [1]
DirectorMasha Turchinsky
CuratorLaura Vookles,
Chair, Curatorial
Public transit access Glenwood station
Website www.hrm.org

The Hudson River Museum, located in Trevor Park in Yonkers, New York, is the largest museum in Westchester County, [2] and features the only public planetarium in the county. While often considered an art museum due to its extensive collection of Hudson River School paintings, the museum also presents exhibits on the history, science and heritage of the region.

Contents

History

Glenview Mansion Hudson River Museum 02.JPG
Glenview Mansion

Founded in 1919 as the Yonkers Museum, the facility was also known as the Yonkers Museum of Science and the Arts, [3] prior to being named the Hudson River Museum. The museum originally contained a number of mineral specimens housed in Yonkers City Hall. Photographer Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr., a lifelong resident of Yonkers, played a key role in the creation of the museum, [4] as did sculptor Isidore Konti, [5] [6] and George J. Stengel. [7]

Central to its history is the Glenview Mansion, a house built in 1877 from a design by American architect Charles W. Clinton, and once the home of one John Bond Trevor. [8] Home of the museum for 45 years from 1929, [3] the house now forms a large part of the Hudson River Museum. It contains six period rooms displaying furniture and decor from that era. In 1972 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, a mark of excellence it has maintained since 1974. [9] The rooms on public display feature carved woodwork by Philadelphia cabinetmaker Daniel Pabst.

In 1979, artist Red Grooms created and installed "The Bookstore" at Hudson River Museum, where it is on permanent display. [10] [11] [12]

Planetarium

The museum has had a planetarium component for over 60 years. The first planetarium was constructed in 1956 inside the Glenview mansion dining room. It had a 20-foot dome, seating for 50 and a Spitz A-1 star projector. In 1969, as part of a major expansion of the museum campus, a planetarium was built with a 40-foot dome, seating for 120 and a Spitz Space Transit Projector. [13] In 1987 the Spitz was replaced by a Zeiss M1015 star projector. One of only three in the U.S., it was capable of displaying 5,000 stars, a thousand more than the Spitz.

In 2014 the planetarium was renovated and upgraded with a Sky-Skan Digital Planetarium system and a Megastar projector capable of displaying 22 million stars. The Hudson River Museum Planetarium (formerly known as the Andrus Planetarium) remains the only public planetarium in Westchester County, [14] and one of the few in the region to feature live presenters on weekends in addition to pre-recorded shows. The planetarium accommodates school groups on weekdays, while three different shows are offered to the public on weekends. Special events and shows are occasionally presented in the evening. The museum has also hosted watch parties for many astronomical events, beginning in 1971 with the close approach of Mars, to Halley's Comet in 1986 and the solar eclipses of 2017 and 2024.

Expansions

The planetarium was one part of the museum's expansion throughout the 1960s, [15] which also included the construction of larger and more modern facilities to house its collections, followed by the restoration of the ground floor of the Glenview house to its 19th-century condition. [16] [17]

The museum's diversity is part of what led to its citation as one of the most unusual cultural facilities by the New York State Council on the Arts in 1972. [18] It has sought to maintain this diversity amidst changes in leadership and focus throughout its history. [19] The diversity is apparent in the museum's 23-acre (9.3 ha) site, on which a 2006 expansion attempted to better join the Glenview Mansion with the modern 1969 additions. [20]

The museum used its namesake, the Hudson River, as the core of its 75th anniversary celebration in 1994. [21] It celebrated its centennial in 2019. [22] [23]

Since 1995 the museum has offered a Junior Docent Program; the program was recognized by the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities with a Coming Up Taller Award in 2008. [24] [25]

In November 2020, the museum broke ground on an expansion project, adding a 12,000 sq ft (1,100 m2) wing to the campus. The new West Wing debuted in June 2023 [26] [27] and houses special exhibition spaces overlooking the Hudson River, a 100-seat auditorium, a Community and Partnership Gallery, and art storage space, also allowing the museum to display more of its permanent collection. [2] In 2023, the museum was awarded a federal Museums for America grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to digitize approximately 8,000 objects, largely consisting of historical photographs representative of their local and regional communities, including photographs from the archives of the John Bond Trevor family, the Alexander Smith Carpet Factory, artist Alvin Hollingsworth, and photographer Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr. [28]

The period interiors of the museum's Glenview Mansion appear in the HBO series The Gilded Age , an American historical drama television series created by Julian Fellowes, which premiered in January 2022. [29]

Funding

The late 1980s was a difficult time for the Hudson River Museum when it faced a decrease in funding, uncertainties in future funding, and a high level of staff turnover. [30] The museum was forced to reduce its operating hours and cut some programming, but was able to expand the planetarium. [3] [31] [32] The facility experienced a resurgence in the 1990s, received a number of grants and awards, saw increased funding from Westchester County, and was able to expand in time for its 75th anniversary. The museum also saw its attendance almost double from 55,000 to 100,000 between 1990 and 1994. [3] The late 1990s saw a downturn in funding and the museum was again forced to face significant cutbacks. [33] In the wake of these cutbacks, the museum began to host private events and offer tours, particularly to groups of school children, as a means of increasing income. [34]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Westchester County, New York</span> County in New York, United States

Westchester County is a county located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of New York, bordering the Long Island Sound to its east and the Hudson River on its west. The county is the seventh most populous county in the State of New York and the most populous north of New York City. According to the 2020 United States Census, the county had a population of 1,004,456, its highest decennial count ever and an increase of 55,344 (5.8%) from the 949,113 counted in 2010. Westchester covers an area of 450 square miles (1,200 km2), consisting of six cities, 19 towns, and 23 villages. Established in 1683, Westchester was named after the city of Chester, England. The county seat is the city of White Plains, while the most populous municipality in the county is the city of Yonkers, with 211,569 residents per the 2020 census. The county is part of the Hudson Valley region of the state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yonkers, New York</span> City in New York, United States

Yonkers is the third-most populous city in the U.S. state of New York and the most-populous city in Westchester County. A centrally located municipality within the New York metropolitan area, Yonkers had a population of 211,569 at the 2020 United States census. Yonkers is classified as an inner suburb of New York City, immediately north of the Bronx and approximately 2.4 miles (4 km) north of Marble Hill.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sprain Brook Parkway</span> North–south parkway in Westchester County, New York

The Sprain Brook Parkway is a 12.65-mile (20.36 km) controlled-access parkway in Westchester County, New York, United States. It begins at an interchange with the Bronx River Parkway in the city of Yonkers, and ends at the former site of the Hawthorne Circle, where it merges into the Taconic State Parkway. The parkway serves an alternate to the Bronx River Parkway, boasting an interchange connection through western Westchester with Interstate 287. New York's Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) refers to it internally as New York State Route 987F (NY 987F), an unsigned reference route.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Getty Square</span> Public square in Yonkers, New York

Getty Square is the name for downtown Yonkers, New York, centered on the public square. Getty Square is the civic center, central business district, and transit hub of the City of Yonkers. A dense and growing residential area, it is located in southern Westchester County, New York. The square is named after prominent 19th-century merchant Robert Getty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">McLaughlin Planetarium</span> Planetarium museum in Ontario, Canada.

The McLaughlin Planetarium is a former working planetarium whose building occupies a space immediately to the south of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, at 100 Queen's Park. Founded by a grant from philanthropist Colonel R. Samuel McLaughlin, the facility was opened to the public on October 26, 1968. It had, for its time, a state-of-the-art electro-mechanical Zeiss planetarium projector that was used to project regular themed shows about the stars, planets, and cosmology for visitors. By the 1980s the planetarium's sound-system and domed ceiling were used to display dazzling music-themed laser-light shows. The lower levels of the planetarium contained a gallery called the "Astrocentre" that featured space-related exhibits, related artifacts on the history of astronomy and was also home of the world's first commercial Stellarium

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saw Mill River</span> River in Westchester County, New York

The Saw Mill River is a 23.5-mile (37.8 km) tributary of the Hudson River in Westchester County, New York, United States. It flows from an unnamed pond north of Chappaqua to Getty Square in Yonkers, where it empties into the Hudson as that river's southernmost tributary. It is the only major stream in southern Westchester County to drain into the Hudson instead of Long Island Sound. It drains an area of 26.5 square miles (69 km2), most of it heavily developed suburbia. For 16 miles (26 km), it flows parallel to the Saw Mill River Parkway, a commuter artery, an association that has been said to give the river an "identity crisis."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science</span> Science museum in Miami, Florida, US

The Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science, formerly known as the Miami Science Museum or Miami Science Museum and Space Transit Planetarium, is a science museum, planetarium, and aquarium located in Miami, Florida, United States. The museum originally opened its Coconut Grove location across from Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in 1960. It relocated to Maurice A. Ferré Park in the downtown area adjacent to the Perez Art Museum Miami in 2017 after the closing of the Coconut Grove location in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Science Barge</span>

The Science Barge is a floating urban farm and environmental education center that has been docked in Yonkers, New York, USA since late 2008. The Barge grows crops using a hydroponic greenhouse powered by solar panels, wind turbines, and biofuels. The crops in the greenhouse are irrigated by captured rainwater and desalinated river water. Food is grown without carbon emissions, no agricultural waste is discharged into the watershed and no pesticides are used. The Science Barge is also a public education tool and hosts school groups from Westchester, New York City and the greater New York area visiting during the week, and the general public on weekends. From 2006–2008, the Science Barge docked for periods of two months at each of six stops along the Manhattan waterfront with the goal of educating the public on urban sustainable agriculture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Armand Spitz</span> American planetarium designer (1904–1971)

Armand Neustadter Spitz was an American planetarium designer.

Ingleside is an American country house overlooking the Hudson River in Dobbs Ferry, New York. It is one of only three survivors of the Gothic Revival "Hudson River castles" built in the mid-nineteenth century, in the now "heavily suburbanized strip" between Riverdale, north of Manhattan, and North Tarrytown. There were at least eighteen villas with picturesque "manor house" details on this reach of the Hudson, as well as two full-blown châteaux: Strawberry Hill, Irvington and Glenview, Yonkers. Ingleside was built in 1854-57 for the English immigrant Edwin B. Strange, a silk importer in New York City, who commissioned its design from Alexander Jackson Davis, the pre-eminent American architect of picturesque villas with Gothic Revival detailing. Much of the original crenellations have been removed over the years, but the stuccoed villa still stands, housing St. Christopher's School, Dobbs Ferry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">W. B. Thompson Mansion</span> Historic house in New York, United States

The W. B. Thompson Mansion, also known as Alder Manor, is a historic home located on North Broadway in the Greystone section of Yonkers, New York, United States. It is an early 20th-century mansion designed by Carrère and Hastings in the Renaissance Revival architectural style. In 1982, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glenview Mansion</span> Historic house in New York, United States

Glenview Mansion, listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the John Bond Trevor House, is located on Warburton Avenue in Yonkers, New York, United States. It is a stone house erected during the 1870s in an eclectic Late Victorian architectural style from a design by Charles W. Clinton. It was listed on the Register in 1972.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abrams Planetarium</span> Planetarium on the campus of Michigan State University, Michigan, United States

Abrams Planetarium is the planetarium on the campus of Michigan State University, Michigan, United States.

The YoHo Artist Community is a community of artists out of the two Alexander Smith Carpet Mills Historic District buildings, located at 540 and 578 Nepperhan Avenue in Yonkers, New York. Its membership has grown to more than 80 working artists since 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr.</span> American photographer

Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr. was an American pictorialist photographer, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was one of the first Americans to be admitted to the Linked Ring, and his photographs won dozens of medals at exhibitions around the world in the 1890s and early 1900s. He was famous among his contemporaries for his portraits of high-society women, most notably model and singer Evelyn Nesbit. Eickemeyer's best-known photographs are now part of the collections of the Smithsonian Institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Westchester County</span> History of a county in New York state

The history of Westchester County, a county in the state of New York, can be traced back to the founding of a settlement between the Hudson River and Long Island Sound in the 17th century. The area now known as Westchester County had seen human occupation since at least the Archaic period, but significant growth in the settlements that are now incorporated into the county did not occur until the Industrial Revolution.

There are numerous nationally and locally designated historic sites and attractions in Westchester County. These include architecturally significant manors and estates, churches, cemeteries, farmhouses, African-American heritage sites, and Underground Railroad depots and waystations. There are sites from pre-Revolutionary and Revolutionary times, as well as battlegrounds. Westchester County also played an important role in the development of the modern suburb, and there are many associated heritage sites and museums.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Newington-Cropsey Foundation</span>

The Newington-Cropsey Foundation (NCF) is a nonprofit private organization based in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. The foundation's aim is to maintain and preserve the works of Jasper Cropsey and the art movement he was a part of, the Hudson River School. The foundation also promotes representational painting and sculpture.

Barbara Segal is a sculptor and stone carver based in Yonkers, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hudson Valley Writers Center</span> Non-Profit Writers Center in Philipsburg Manor, Sleepy Hollow, New York

The Hudson Valley Writer Center is a non-profit literary arts organization in Philipsburg Manor, Sleepy Hollow, NY. It was established on August 5, 1988, by Margo Taft Stever, a Sleepy Hollow poet, with the assistance of the Westchester Council of Arts, and moved into its permanent home at the Philipse Manor Railroad Station in 1996. The center hosts over 40 readings/workshops with poets, fiction and non-fiction authors, and playwrights over the course of a year, as well as popular recurring monthly events like Open Mic, Open Write and Submission Sunday. They also publish chapbooks annually under its imprint, Slapering Hol Press.

References

  1. ↑ "Hudson River Museum: About". ARTINFO. 2008. Retrieved 2008-07-28.[ permanent dead link ]
  2. 1 2 "New York's Hudson River Museum will break ground on a major expansion". 16 November 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Roberta Hershenson (1994-12-04). "Grants Cheer Hudson River Museum". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  4. ↑ https://www.worldcat.org/title/in-my-studio-rudolf-eickemeyer-jr-and-the-art-of-the-camera-1885-1930/oclc/15683645 [ bare URL ]
  5. ↑ "Isidore Konti & Paul Manship - Hudson River Museum — Google Arts & Culture".
  6. ↑ "Yonkers Art Association printed material, 1920-1966 | Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution".
  7. ↑ "George J. Stengel 1866-1937: New Hope Impressions".
  8. ↑ Panetta, Roger G. Westchester: The American Suburb. New York: Fordham University Press, 2006
  9. ↑ "Accredited Museums".
  10. ↑ Shirey, David L. (13 May 1979). "'The Bookstore,' Red Grooms Style". The New York Times.
  11. ↑ Bland, Bartholomew F. (2008). Red Grooms: In the Studio & the Bookstore. Hudson River Museum. ISBN   9780943651361.
  12. ↑ "Grooving with Grooms in Yonkers". The New York Times. 4 March 1979.
  13. ↑ John Canaday (1969-11-15). "Hudson River Museum Adds Space". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  14. ↑ "The Andrus Planetarium". The New York Times. 1988-09-25. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  15. ↑ Joseph P. Fried (1967-07-02). "Old Museum to Get a Modern Addition". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  16. ↑ "Art in Westchester from Private Collection". Hudson River Museum. Retrieved 1 May 2017– via Google Books.
  17. ↑ Kate Stone Lombardi (2003-11-09). "Oh, the Places You'll See! Right Here". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  18. ↑ George Goodman Jr. (1972-05-26). "Unusual Hudson River Museum Cited". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  19. ↑ Tessa Melvin (1989-06-11). "Hudson Museum Names New Chief". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  20. ↑ Elsa Brenner (2006-06-04). "Melding Victorian and Brutalist Styles". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  21. ↑ "Happy Anniversary, Hudson River Museum". The New York Times. 1994-07-10. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  22. ↑ "Hudson River Museum's Centennial: Westchester's One and Only 100-Year Old Museum | ArtsWestchester". 27 June 2019.
  23. ↑ "Hudson River Museum's Centennial: Looking to the Future by Embracing the Past | ArtsWestchester". 2 July 2019.
  24. ↑ Hershenson, Roberta (25 May 2008). "Inside a Museum, It's Cool". The New York Times.
  25. ↑ "MRS. Bush's Remarks at the 2007 Coming up Taller Awards Ceremony".
  26. ↑ "Connecting Is Key to Hudson River Museum's New Wing". 3 July 2023.
  27. ↑ "HUDSON RIVER MUSEUM SOARS INTO NEXT PHASE WITH NEW WEST WING". 25 July 2023.
  28. ↑ "Advanced Search | Institute of Museum and Library Services".
  29. ↑ "Westchester in the Spotlight as HBO's The Gilded Age Premieres Jan. 24".
  30. ↑ Tessa Melvin (1989-01-08). "Director's Post Empty Again at Hudson River Museum". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  31. ↑ Tessa Melvin (1987-05-10). "New Director Hired at the Hudson River Museum". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  32. ↑ Tessa Melvin (1987-01-18). "Hudson River Museum Cuts Services". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  33. ↑ David Scharfenberg (2006-03-12). "Less for Medicaid, More for Museums". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  34. ↑ Elsa Brenner (1997-11-30). "Arts Centers Open Doors for Hire to Survive". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.