Guggenheim on the Hudson? - potential plans to expand Guggenheim Museum to site on Hudson River - Brief Article

Rumors always seem to be swirling about the globally expansionist Guggenheim Museum, yet even well-briefed Manhattan gossip mongers were taken aback on Nov. 19 when the New York Times ran a story on the museum's plan to open a new branch right under their noses. The proposed site is on a state-owned 15-acre pier--where a three-story, 2,200-car parking garage now stands--located in a 5-mile-long, 500-acre new riverfront park in Manhattan, just across the West Side Highway from Greenwich Village and within walking distance of SoHo. Frank Gehry--whose other riverside projects include the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota and the Guggenheim Bilbao--has already prepared drawings for the project.

The news apparently caught Mayor Rudy Giuliani by surprise; he and other community, city and state officials are reportedly looking into whether the project would be legal. The law that created the park calls for half of the pier to be used as park space and half for commercial enterprises to finance it. If the building is to project beyond the pier into the river, it will also need approval from the Army Corps of Engineers.

A follow-up in the Times the next day quoted Deputy Mayor Randy L. Levine as saying, "We were extremely disappointed that the first we heard about this project was reading about it in the newspaper."

Reportedly, the Guggenheim would close its SoHo branch if the West Side museum is built. The Times said that the SoHo branch has lost $40 million over six years; but Krens, in a memo to museum board members, said that the branch is actually breaking even and that that was one of the story's many inaccuracies. Guggenheim spokesperson Scott Gutterman told A.i.A. that the story was "very premature" and that the project is just "an idea for which drawings have been done." He also stated that the plans are so unofficial that not even all of the museum's board members were aware of the project.

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