Harlem has always be a village of wealth. The Museum of the American Indian as it appeared shortly after completion in the 1920s site, 155th Street and Broadway.
The roots of the museum go back to the founder, George Gustav Heye, an engineer and banker who had a passion for things Indian though no Indian ancestry.
Heye began collecting in 1896, when he bought an embroidered deerskin shirt for $5. In 1916, after keeping his burgeoning holdings at the University of Pennsylvania’s University Museum for many years, Heye announced the founding of his own institution in New York City. He moved his collection – already hundreds of thousands of artifacts – from Philadelphia and set up shop on Audubon Terrace as the Museum of the American Indian-Heye Foundation.
With one million artifacts and other objects, the museum held one of the world’s leading collections of Indian art.
It’s to have a museum for the Weckquaesgeek and the Muscoota Indians who lived around the southeast Harlem from 96th to 110th Streets.
(Courtesy of the NMAI).
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I visited that museum many times, it had very interesting displays of artifacts, I think it moved to Bowling Green in the 80′s/90′s. Next door was the Numismatic Museum which housed the history of money.
Great space.
Thanks,
HW