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Bronx Museum Seeks to Add Rooftop Garden

By Eddie Small | June 26, 2014 5:22pm
 The Bronx Museum of the Arts hopes to add a rooftop garden to the building.
The Bronx Museum of the Arts hopes to add a rooftop garden to the building.
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DNAinfo/Patrick Wall

CONCOURSE — A rooftop garden may be coming to the Bronx Museum.

Executive Director Holly Block outlined goals for renovations to the establishment at Tuesday's Bronx Community Board 4 meeting, which include roof gardens, garden spaces behind the museum on Carroll Place and office refurbishments.

Architect and Bronx Museum trustee Joan Krevlin stressed the need to make the museum's art more visible from the outside and more accessible to the neighborhood, which the establishment hopes to do by putting in a community gallery that would be open to the street.

The gallery would ideally invite locals to come "participate in the museum," Krevlin said. "Essentially, as the active community corner of the building, like a public living room, it really celebrates the art inside the building."

Krevlin also discussed plans to try renovating the museum's outdoor spaces. These spaces could include features such as a roof garden, a sculpture garden, summer programs for children and space for outdoor movies.

The Bronx Museum of the Arts was originally housed in the Bronx County Courthouse's public rotunda, but in 1982, it moved to a former synagogue at 165th Street and Grand Concourse. In October 2006, it opened a $19 million expansion to the north of its existing building that featured an outdoor terrace and a floor dedicated to classrooms and education programs.

This time, Block specifically highlighted the need to refurbish the museum's corner glass atrium. Krevlin described the atrium as hot, outdated and unusable.

"Many of you might remember that it was built as a synagogue. It really wasn’t originally built to have a museum," Block said. "We made two renovations: one in 1982, another one in 1989. It’s time to revisit that corner and make it happen."