The New-York Historical Society is finally ridding itself of that pesky hyphen in its name, rebranding as the New York Historical (NYH). The museum’s new $175m wing dedicated to American democracy is on track to open in 2026, just in time for the 250th anniversary of the US’s founding.
The financier Oscar Tang and his wife, the archaeologist and art historian Agnes Hsu-Tang, gave $20m towards the 70,000-sq.-ft expansion project, which will be named the Tang Wing for American Democracy. (The City of New York provided $57m for the project.) Hsu-Tang is the chair of the NYH’s board; the couple have previously funded a number of initiatives at the museum, as well as giving millions to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Philharmonic. The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, was funded by Tang and named for his first wife, who died in 1992.
The Tang Wing at the NYH, designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, will house the Academy for American Democracy, an educational programme for local schoolchildren. It will also host the American LGBTQ+ Museum, as well as the NYH’s museum studies master’s degree programme, founded in 2019 with the City University of New York's School of Professional Studies. The wing will add new classrooms, galleries, a conservation studio, storage for the library, a courtyard and a rooftop terrace overlooking Central Park.
“This fall brings several important milestones for New York’s first museum,” Louise Mirrer, president and chief executive of the NYH, said in a statement. “Agnes and Oscar’s most generous gift enables us to greatly expand teaching and celebrating democracy here in New York, our nation’s first capital and the place where George Washington was inaugurated. With our new name and look, we are embracing our responsibility not simply as stewards and storytellers of history but, through our education programmes reaching 30,000 students each year, as a contemporary leader in ensuring democracy’s future.”