On Thursday, July 11, local politicians and organization leaders celebrated breaking ground at the Bronx Museum of the Arts $33 million renovation.
Photo ET Rodriguez
For more than 50 years, the Bronx Museum of the Arts has prided itself on its core values of social justice, youth development, building community and providing free access to the people. On Thursday, July 11, as they officially broke ground on a $33 million renovation — courtesy of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA), Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) — the museum can continue to be a pillar of culture for another 50 years to come.
“It’s not just a renovation, it is a rebirth,” said Klaudio Rodriguez, director of the museum, at the groundbreaking ceremony. “The people of the Bronx deserve a world-class space that matches the world-class programming that we present here. This is for them.”
Since 1971, the Bronx Museum of the Arts has been a beacon of creativity and culture and in some cases, refuge from the surrounding chaos, with Irma Fleck at the helm. The late executive director of the Bronx Council of the Arts, worked not only to beautify a crumbling Bronx, but to give it a cultural hub that was missing and so prevalent in the other boroughs.
Originally housed at the Bronx County Courthouse when the borough was engulfed in a decade of fire, the museum served as a haven. In 1982, it moved to its forever home at a vacant synagogue at 1040 Grand Concourse and opened to the public a year later. But it wasn’t until 2004 that the museum would undergo its first major renovation by design firm, Arquitectonica, resulting in the sleek 16,000-square-foot expansion which doubled the size of the museum and took two years to complete.
Following its commitment to education and outreach, the museum created a paid internship for high school students in 2005. The Teen Council taught…
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