Metropolitan Museum of Art Unveils Facade

[W-OLF]

Metropolitan Museum of Art Unveils Facade

Published: 3/6/06, 6:46 PM EDT
NEW YORK (AP) - It looks like the art starts on the outside of the building.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art unveiled its freshly scrubbed and sparkling Fifth Avenue facade, fully cleaned and restored for the first time in the building's 100-plus year history.

"It's one of the city's great public spaces because it succeeds in both being grand and inviting at the same time," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was joined Monday by museum officials, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, and Reps. Charles Rangel and Carolyn Maloney at a ribbon-cutting event.

The restoration project took about four years and cost $12.2 million, raised through public and private money, including $6.1 million from the city and $1.6 million from the federal government.

"It's clearly been money well-spent because the museum's facade has never looked better," Bloomberg said.

During the restoration, the building's neoclassical front was screened from public view. Using the expertise of its own conservation staff, the museum came up with a plan to clean and restore the four-block-long facade that included using sprinklers to wash off the stone and repairs made with limestone from the original quarry.

"What you see today ... is a glistening, inspiring site," said Philippe de Montebello, director of the museum. "You see the Metropolitan Museum facade as it first looked when it was completed more than a century ago."

The museum also changed the way it displays the banners that showcase current exhibits. The colorful, 36-feet-by-26-feet cloths used to hang vertically, but now the Metropolitan uses smaller horizontal banners. The smaller banners leave the three windows at the main entrance unblocked, allowing more daylight into the building.

The southern part of the facade will remain covered until spring 2007 while interior renovations in that section are completed.

The Metropolitan's collection includes more than 2 million works of art, ranging over a 5,000-year period. A city landmark, it's also a top tourist draw, averaging more than 4.3 million visitors every year.
credit BellSouth

[shakie]

cool that they cleaned it and all...