2/15: Shared Authority, Shared Inquiry, and Radical Roots (cont'd)

 

I got the chance to read the story behind the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and the controversy surrounding its attempt to acquire 99 Orchard Street, which neighbored 97 Orchard Street where the museum was housed. The story follows the Lower East Side Tenement House Museum discovering damage done by the tenants of Orchard 99 who were building their own business in the building. The museum had been ahead of the efforts in the museum industry to focus on telling the forgotten stories of the common person. In addition to focusing in on the story of immigrants, the museum also celebrated their immigrant past as the equivalent of the frontier in the cities. The local community had a good view of the museum. Many local businesses had credited the museum as a boost to their businesses by attracted more people to the area. The museum under Ruth Abrams had seen great success under her leadership to the point where she had begun to seek expansion elsewhere. Abrams brought with her many connections caused by both her father’s legacy as a civil right lawyer and a member of the Reagan administration and her own work in founding and working in many social organizations. These connections allowed Abrams to acquire more funding and assistance compared to the average house museum. Abrams also brought with her a unique view point into the museum industry. She believed in the “expand or die” mentality that mainly existed in the business world.  After multiple failed expansion efforts, Abrams had zoned in on the neighboring Orchard 99 as the ideal expansion target. The attempts to acquire the property would not go as planned however.

There were two tenants in Orchard 99, and while one was willing to sell, the other was not. Lou Holtzman did not wish to sell the tenement that had been in his family for four generations. Despite multiple offers by the bank, Holtzman refused to sell the property. The museum had been offering to buy this property along with other ones well below market value. The museum had also been condescending in their offers by implying that the owners were eager to get rid of their unproductive property. Eventually, the museum decided to use imminent domain to attempt to forcibly acquire the property from Holtzman. Holtzman fought back and began to put up signs and stage protests outside the museum to bring the public’s attention to the issue. The museum had complaints about its content as well. The four families represented in the museum were all White, which undermined the non-white immigrant history in New York. Some critics also pointed out that the museum’s stories of immigrants becoming Americans went against the idea of immigrants maintaining their culture and practices. Instead of cultural citizenship being about shedding their former identity and becoming American, these critics argued that cultural citizenship is a two-way street where the individual can assimilate into the existing culture while being comfortable to express their original culture. Eventually, these critiques along with Holtzman’s protest highlighted the irony of a tenement museum actively kicking out the tenants whose stories they were trying to tell. The museum against gentrification became the gentrifier.

These issues came in part due to the museum not participating with its community. While the community liked the business the museum brought, the museum never really interacted with the community until it began to try purchasing property. The museum lacked in shared authority and shared inquiry that public historians need to practice. Shared authority is the idea that both the historian and the audience both have authority over the story being told. The Tenement Museum clearly did not share its authority in the story the museum told. As mentioned earlier, other historians had already critiqued the museum for not really acknowledging the non-White immigrant past in New York. Shared inquiry is quite similar to shared authority, but there is a notable different. In shared authority, the audience is invited to disagree with the story being presented while in shared inquiry, the audience is invited to create their own story from the ideas being presented. The Tenement Museum failed here too. By failing to invite the local people in and uplifting the descendants of those the museum portrays like Holtzman, the museum found itself outside the community it was meant to represent.