Lower East Side Tenement Museum, New York, NY
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Narrative Section of a Successful Application The attached document contains the grant narrative and selected portions of a previously funded grant application. It is not intended to serve as a model, but to give you a sense of how a successful application may be crafted. Every successful application is different, and each applicant is urged to prepare a proposal that reflects its unique project and aspirations. Prospective applicants should consult the Challenge Grants application guidelines at http://www.neh.gov/grants/challenge/challenge-grants for instructions. Applicants are also strongly encouraged to consult with the NEH Office of Challenge Grants staff well before a grant deadline. Note: The attachment only contains the grant narrative and selected portions, not the entire funded application. In addition, certain portions may have been redacted to protect the privacy interests of an individual and/or to protect confidential commercial and financial information and/or to protect copyrighted materials. Project Title: 103 Orchard Street Construction and Renovation Institution: Lower East Side Tenement Museum, New York, NY Project Directors: Dr. Annie Polland Grant Program: Challenge Grants 400 7th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20024 P 202.606.8309 F 202.606.8394 E [email protected] www.neh.gov LOWER EAST SIDE TENEMENT MUSEUM NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES CHALLENGE GRANT APPLICATION MAY 1, 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 1 Narrative 2-25 Challenge Grant Budget 26-27 Institutional Fact & Financial Summary 28-29 Board of Trustees, Key Staff Bios 30-32 Appendices: Appendix A: Proposed Legislation 33-37 Appendix B: Letter from National Parks Service 38 Appendix C: Detailed budget and scope of work & Cash flow projections 39-48 Appendix D: Map of the historic district 49 Appendix E: Letter from architects to SHPO 50-51 Appendix F: Letter from National Trust for Historic Preservation 52-53 Appendix G: 103 Orchard Street Sourcebook 54-135 Appendix H: Resumes of Key Staff 136-139 Appendix I: Letters of Support 140-142 GRANT11389714 -- Attachments-ATT1-1234-Challenge Grant Table of Contents.pdf LOWER EAST SIDE TENEMENT MUSEUM PROPOSAL TO THE NEH CHALLENGE GRANT PROGRAM ABSTRACT The Lower East Side Tenement Museum, one of the leading cultural institutions dedicated to exploring America’s immigrant heritage, requests a $500,000 Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for construction that will prepare three additional floors of its recently acquired 103 Orchard Street building for exhibit, program, and administrative space, and to replace the roof and cornice. Specifically, the third floor will be readied for a new exhibit, with accurate representations of tenement life from 1950 to 1980, and floors four and five will be reconfigured to house administrative offices, historical archives, and collections storage spaces. Funding from the NEH will be used solely for construction work for the purpose of rendering the building’s upper floors usable and preparing the spaces for exhibit installation. Funds for exhibit research, planning, design, fabrication, and installation are not part of this request. Since its founding in 1988, the Tenement Museum has been a pioneer in developing an innovative public history approach to exploring social history, presenting the stories of ordinary people and everyday life in a pre- law tenement that it has transformed into a series of time capsules covering 1863 to1935. Its tenement apartments set the stage for highly personalized narratives of struggle and adaptation. The Museum continually seeks opportunities to expand the stories it tells and the historical range and interpretations it covers. The new exhibit at 103 Orchard Street represents an eagerly awaited opportunity to bring this narrative through post World War II immigration. The Museum’s collections and exhibit spaces are grounded in its National Historic Landmark tenement at 97 Orchard Street, which the Museum has scrupulously researched to recreate the homes of some of the 7,000 people from 20 nations who lived there throughout its history. Skilled educators guide visitors through the building, using personal stories of its residents to highlight connections among immigrant experiences past and present. Educators explain the physical spaces, lead visitors through the restored homes, and share the primary sources through which the Museum has pieced together the stories of former residents. Visitors see how changes to the building fabric can be used to illuminate historical debates and to shed light on such diverse issues as health policy, housing laws, the labor movement, urban growth, and economic cycles. The Museum also presents a wide array of public programs and walking tours. Interpreting post-1945 immigration extends the Tenement Museum’s reach in two important ways. Chronologically, it brings the Museum’s stories firmly into the realm of living memory, where oral history and archival evidence overlap. Spatially, it extends the Museum’s innovative place-based model to a second tenement building, constructed at a later date and under a different regulatory regime, and expands opportunities to compare the changing conditions faced by immigrant families over time. Restoring three apartments into interpretive settings will allow the Museum to give a deeply personal, human face to the experiences of post-war Jewish, Chinese, and Puerto Rican newcomers. It will also enable the Museum to better serve visitors who identify with recent immigrant streams, something that will be of immediate benefit to the tens of thousands of NYC public school students who visit annually. Each year, the Museum’s audience and programs continue to grow, with visitor demand often outstripping capacity. In 2012, we hosted nearly 200,000 visitors, including 40,000 schoolchildren, many of whom are themselves immigrants or the children of immigrants. TripAdvisor rankings consistently place the Museum among New York City’s top 15 attractions. The capital project will serve as the centerpiece of a $15 million capital campaign, which the Museum plans to announce publically in December 2013 and for which $5.8 million has already been raised. The imprimatur of the Challenge Grant will provide invaluable support, spurring $1.5 million in non-federal funding that will be essential to the success of this ambitious endeavor. 1 GRANT11389714 -- Attachments-ATT2-1235-Challenge Grant Abstract.pdf LOWER EAST SIDE TENEMENT MUSEUM NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES CHALLENGE GRANT APPLICATION May 1, 2013 A. Overview The Lower East Side Tenement Museum, one of the leading cultural institutions dedicated to exploring America’s immigrant heritage, requests a $500,000 Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for construction that will prepare three additional floors of its recently acquired 103 Orchard Street building for exhibit, program, and administrative space. Since its founding in 1988, the Tenement Museum has been a pioneer in developing an innovative public history approach to exploring social history, presenting the stories of ordinary people and everyday life in a pre-law tenement that it has transformed into a series of time capsules covering 1863 through 1935. Its tenement apartments set the stage for highly personalized narratives of struggle and adaptation. The Museum continually seeks opportunities to expand the stories it tells and the historical range and interpretations it covers. The addition of a new exhibit in 103 Orchard Street represents an opportunity to bring its stories into the era of post-World War II immigration. Each year, the Museum’s audience and programs continue to grow, with visitor demand often outstripping capacity. In 2012, we hosted nearly 200,000 visitors, including 40,000 schoolchildren, many of whom are themselves immigrants or the children of immigrants. Visitors come from all 50 states and more than 50 countries, and attendance has increased by 40% in the past five years. TripAdvisor rankings consistently place the Museum among New 2 GRANT11389714 -- Attachments-ATT3-1236-Challenge Grant Narrative.pdf York City’s top 15 attractions, with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Frick Collection as the city’s only other museums to achieve that standing. The Museum’s collections and exhibit spaces are grounded in its National Historic Landmark tenement at 97 Orchard Street, which the Museum has scrupulously researched to recreate the homes of some of the 7,000 people from 20 nations who lived there throughout its history. Skilled educators guide visitors through the building, using personal stories of its residents to highlight connections among immigrant experiences past and present. Educators explain the physical spaces, lead visitors through the restored homes, and share the primary sources – census records, oral interviews, death certificates, and the like – through which the Museum has pieced together the stories of former residents. Visitors see how changes to the building fabric can be used to illuminate historical debates and to shed light on such diverse issues as health policy, housing laws, the labor movement, urban growth, and economic cycles. The Museum has also successfully woven the personal stories of past residents into broader themes that reveal how different immigrants experienced the American dream. However, because 97 Orchard Street was condemned as unfit for human occupancy in 1935, the Museum has been largely unable to tell the stories of more recent immigrants; this