Whitney’s new Downtown digs a return to its roots

By Albert Amateau

The Whitney Museum of American Art on Wednesday presented the design for a new Whitney branch to be built next year at the foot of the High Line in the Meatpacking District.

The long-awaited project, which will have nearly three times more floor space than the uptown Whitney, was hailed as an ideal anchor for the High Line Park, the lower end of which is to open between Gansevoort and W. 20th Sts. by the end of this year.

“This is a return to our roots,” said Adam Weinberg, director of the museum that was founded in 1918 as an artists’ club on MacDougal Alley in the Village by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.

“I believe the High Line will become the greatest park in New York City, and we’re fortunate to be the anchor at the base,” Weinberg told the Wednesday presentation meeting convened by Community Board 2. “It will be a bridge between the High Line and the Hudson River Park to the west,” he added.

The new Whitney, designed by prize-winning Italian architect Renzo Piano, will not be connected directly to the High Line. It will step down from six stories on the side facing the river to street level just west of the Gansevoort St. beginning of the High Line.

To be built at the same time as the Whitney, a Department of Parks and Recreation maintenance and operation building for the High Line will be adjacent to the new museum and connect with the High Line.

The maintenance building, with a total of 26,000 square feet, will have four levels aboveground and two below, but will still be about a third as tall as the top level of the museum, said Mike Bradley, High Line administrator for the Parks Department. In addition to maintenance and operation equipment ands crews, the building will have public toilets and community meeting space.

Rebecca Asser, vice president of the city Economic Development Corp., said the Downtown Whitney would complement the High Line Park. The EDC has been working for the past year and a half to help the Whiney acquire the property at the foot of the railroad viaduct that is being transformed into a park.

The museum’s cantilevered main entrance on Gansevoort St. will shelter a public plaza and lead to an expanded lobby that would serve as a free public space, which could double as performance space.

The largest gallery on the third floor will be about 17,500 square feet without columns; it would be one of the largest free-span exhibition spaces in the city. The museum’s permanent collection will be on the fourth and fifth floors, and long-term projects on the top floor. The new Whitney, the first green museum in the city, will have a 175-seat theater, a study center and space for the museum’s 35 education programs. The Whitney’s programs include a relationship with the Hudson Guild.

The Downtown Whitney will require four land-use changes and permits—to allow a museum in a manufacturing zone and for the museum’s three setback terraces, which will provide 15,000 square feet of outdoor gallery and event space.

The nine to 10 month review process, including an environmental assessment statement, is scheduled to begin May 5 when the Department of City Planning is expected to certify the proposal.

Community Board 2’s Zoning Committee will hold a hearing on the zoning variances on Thurs., May 15 at 6:30 p.m. in the basement of Our Lady Pompei Church on Bleecker and Carmine Sts. in the Village.