0.9 Chapter seven: retrenchment and the struggle for survival, 19  (Page 19/20)

In such an environment, it was impossible for the Society's board to act on the proposed contract. Consistent with the letter sent extending the original dead­line, the Mellon Foundation's appropriation lapsed. like the public officials, some members of the Society's board complained that they, too, had not been kept informed regarding negotiations with NYU; however, there was at least some effort to include the board in the deliberations. Board minutes from the Society's December 1993 meeting document a rather detailed discussion regarding terms of a "potential broadening of the existing relationship between the Society and NYU." In the end, whether the board was fully informed was irrelevant. In the wake of the negative characterization of NYU's intentions in the press, several board members took very strong positions against the proposed agreement. These sentiments, which were obviously shared by several important New York City and State officials, doomed the proposal before it came to a vote. There would be no partnership between New York University and The New-York Historical Society.

In early April, having served six months beyond the term of his original con­tract, "Pug" Winokur resigned his position as the Society's co-chairman and acting chief executive officer. Although he felt that the Society had made great progress—for example, it had hired an effective chief financial officer, it had elim­inated hundreds of thousands of dollars of annual waste, and it had planned for and begun to implement the capital renovation of the building—Winokur regarded the NYU-Society partnership as an essential first step in the Society's reawakening. Winokur was in such strong disagreement with the Society's chosen course that he decided to step aside.

The failed attempt to forge a relationship, and the negative publicity associ­ated with it, had clearly hardened public officials against any attempts at affilia­tion. Whereas the advisory committee had initially stated unequivocally that an affiliation or even several affiliations were necessary if the Society was to survive, it was now the opinion of most observers and many key political officials that the Society's collections had to be kept together. Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger, City Councilwoman Ronnie Eldridge, Municipal Arts Society President Kent Barwick, and others demanded "that trustees reaffirm their pledge to preserve the Society's unparalleled trove of Americana . . . and make it accessible to the public. ... To ensure that there is no further attempt to carve up the Society,. . . state and city officials are . . . getting ex-officio membership on the board of trustees."

The article was also the first to criticize the leadership of Wilbur Ross. "At the center of the latest controversy sits Wilbur Ross, Jr., . . . who until recently was regarded as the Society's smart and conscientious savior. . . . But over the past month, some of the people who once championed Mr. Ross came to see him as a villain. . . . They say he kept them in the dark about the trustees' plans to sell the society's valuable real estate and to deaccession ... a portion of the Society's $1 billion collection."