0.9 Chapter seven: retrenchment and the struggle for survival, 19  (Page 9/20)

The third component of the committee's recommendation centered on how to generate both endowment capital and a recurring revenue stream from the Society's real estate holdings. Recognizing that real estate development had been rejected by the Society's neighbors and the Landmarks Preservation Commission in the mid 1980s, the committee wrote that it had "no desire to re-inflame old pas­sions, but assumes that a pre-condition of governmental support will be that the Society monetize its real estate." The difference this time would be that the So­ciety would be sensitive to community concerns concerning the scale of the project. It recommended that a community advisory board be established to com­municate with the Society about neighborhood concerns. The committee rec­ommended that the Society invite a variety of developer-architect teams to submit plans that could be discussed and approved by the various concerned constitu­encies at each step along the way. It was estimated that $15 million could be generated up front, along with $825,000 of annual income from real estate de­velopment.

Even with deaccessioning and real estate development bringing the Society's endowment up to $40 million, there was still a need to generate significant income through other methods. Using a spending rate of 5.5 percent, the committee de­termined that the new endowment could generate $2.2 million of the projected $4.95 million budget. The remaining $2.75 million was to be generated through trustee giving ($1 million), other annual private fundraising ($300,000), admissions and membership ($125,000), royalties and rights fees ($150,000), state library fund­ing ($225,000), and annual operating support from the city ($950,000). The com­mittee did not believe that requesting nearly $1 million in annual support from the city was unreasonable. For comparative purposes, the committee identified the annual appropriations of several other city cultural institutions that were members of the city's CIG. The contributions ranged from $2.5 million for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to $13.7 million for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

But $950,000 was just one part of what the committee's plan required of the public sector. In addition to the annual operating support, the committee also appealed to government for capital support. Serious building problems continued to exist, and it was estimated that approximately $10 million would be required to refurbish the building. Moreover, the committee's recommendations were not going to result in an immediate influx of cash to the Society's accounts. The com­mittee estimated that it would take over a year to realize the various goals outlined in the report. The committee requested $2.6 million, again from government, to underwrite this transitionary period.

In summing up the Ross advisory committee's recommendations, several notable aspects should be highlighted. First, in making its recommendations, the advisory committee emphasized that all components of its report were absolutely interdependent. If even one of the major components could not be fulfilled, the plan would fail. It argued that the recommendations should be implemented only if it were clear that deaccessioning would take place, that real estate development would happen, and that significant public sector support was forthcoming. Sec­ond, the committee argued strongly that the N-YHS remain a single entity housing both a library and a museum. In a discussion reminiscent of the 1988 Macomber committee recommendations, the committee expressed the opinion that the Society's unique combination of collections was its distinct asset. It was suggested that the library and museum collections are sufficiently dependent on each other that splitting them would significantly reduce their total value. Third, the committee's recommendations were a departure from what had been the con­sidered opinion of the Society's leadership for some time and had been reaffirmed in earlier statements by the committee—that is, that the Society could not survive without some kind of merger or affiliation. Instead of requiring or even recom­mending such a step, the committee chose to say that it did not rule one out. At some point in the latter part of the committee's deliberations, Ross and his col­leagues decided that their plan, if all the parts fell in place, could save the Society and allow it to survive intact.