The Museum of the City of New York has received the largest gift in its 94-year history, a $10 million donation from The Thompson Family Foundation to the Museum’s endowment in support of educational activities related to New York at Its Core, the Museum’s groundbreaking permanent exhibition covering 400 years of New York City history.
New York at Its Core, which opened on November 18, 2016, is the first-ever museum exhibition to present the sweeping 400-year history of New York from a striving Dutch village to today’s “Capital of the World” – a preeminent global city facing the future in a changing world. Five years in the making and developed with an advisory group of 17 of the country’s leading scholars and historians, the exhibition has been recognized as a major intellectual and cultural achievement for the Museum. New York at Its Core is an unparalleled educational resource, allowing the Museum to offer one-of-a-kind programming for tens of thousands of parents, children, students, and educators from every neighborhood in New York City.
“With this generous donation from The Thompson Family Foundation, the Museum will be able to continue to celebrate and interpret the city and reinforce our commitment to keeping education at the heart of the Museum’s mission,” said James G. Dinan, the Museum’s Chair of the Board of Trustees. “I want to offer my gratitude to The Thompson Family Foundation for their belief in the Museum as well as all those who have helped make New York at Its Core a ‘must see’ attraction for New Yorkers, tourists, and visitors of all ages.”
“We want to thank The Thompson Family Foundation for this generous gift, which is a vote of support for the vision and hard work of our Board and our talented staff,” said Whitney Donhauser, Ronay Menschel Director of the Museum of the City of New York. “The tremendously successful opening of New York at Its Core has elevated the awareness of the Museum and reinforces the Museum’s role as an educational resource for the students, teachers, and parents of New York City.”
Alan Siegel, a director of The Thompson Family Foundation and Museum of the City of New York Trustee, said: “As young boys, Wade Thompson and I had a similar dream – being part of New York, our ‘City of Ambition’. Wade’s daughter Amanda Riegel, the President of the Foundation, the other members of the Thompson family, and I want our youth to know New York’s remarkable history, particularly the diversity of its people, so that they understand that in New York anything is possible. New York at Its Core is a fabulous tool to help achieve that goal.”
