0.10 Chapter eight: facing tough choices today

Physical plant

Because of the rapid growth of the collections, the Society has always struggled with the limitations of its physical facilities. In its earliest days, the Society moved several times. After 1904, when it built the central building of the structure it now occupies, the Society dealt with its continuing collections growth by adding the north and south wings. But collections growth did not stop with the 1938 expan­sion of the building. When it once again found itself short of space, the Society contracted for outside storage. The first record of payments for outside storage appeared in 1969, and for seventeen years such expenditures remained modest. Unfortunately, there was a hidden cost to the inexpensive storage facilities: they did not provide a suitable environment for protection of the collections. The 1988 public controversy about the Society's substandard care of its collections and the subsequent attorney general's investigation were instigated by reports of the conditions in the Society's outside storage facilities. The Society responded to the controversy by moving the collections into a first-rate environment, but at sub­stantial cost. In 1993, the cost of the lease for outside storage was $500,000, nearly 10 percent of the Society's operating budget.

Inadequate storage space is not the only facilities-related problem the Soci­ety faces. The building is nearly one hundred years old, and the fixed costs asso­ciated with maintaining it are extremely high. Much of the facility is cavernous, with high ceilings that make it extremely expensive to heat in the winter and cool in the summer. In addition, the building is not well designed to provide clear sight lines for guards in the exhibition galleries or to control flow in the library. To safeguard against theft requires substantial security personnel. Finally, and per­haps most important, capital maintenance of the structure, like preservation and conservation of the collections, is an expensive and unceasing job. Unfortu­nately, for many years, the Society did not spend enough for the regular mainte­nance of its physical plant. The bill for that deferred maintenance has come due, and it is large. Of the recent $12 million government appropriation, $10 mil­lion was for capital improvements, and even that sum has proved insufficient to address all of the structure's problems. Because of the age and condition of the building, substantial funds will be needed annually for plant maintenance and rehabilitation.

Relationship with the public sector

In its infancy, the Society was dependent on the public sector for support. It was the state that saved the Society during its first brush with bankruptcy in 1824. In addition, the city made available parcels of land (which the Society did not accept) in the 1860s when the Society had outgrown its Second Avenue home. But after the establishment of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library, the Society did not petition the public sector for general operating support again until the late 1980s.