Museum of the City of New York

I posted earlier that my parents and I first viewed the NYC Waterfalls on our way to another destination: we were headed uptown to the Museum of the City of New York, on Fifth Avenue, to see their exhibit: 

It was the first time that any of us had been to the Museum and I think that we were pretty well impressed. There doesn't seem to be much of a standing collection, but the rotating exhibits, like the one we came to see, are well-planned and executed.

The exhibit is intended to help mark the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the Diocese (now Archdiocese, of course) of New York. Although there was some context given about Catholicism in New York prior to the establishment of the Diocese, and there was some coverage of Catholicism in post-war New York, the exhibit's clear focus was from 1808-1946.

I was trying to be on vacation, so I didn't have all of my "American-Catholic-Historian-Hopeful" antennae working, but my basic assessment is that the exhibit was well done. While I can't imagine that everyone working on this exhibit was a practicing Catholic, or even versed in things religious, the themes and texts of the exhibit avoided most of the usual pit-falls associated with Church history.

I was particularly impressed that due attention was given to anti-Catholicism and that there were few if any attempts at cheap shots even as mention was made of the modern-day clerical abuse crisis.

Given obvious time and space restrictions, I think the curators did a good job of touching on the major themes of Catholic life in New York and in making their case that Catholics in New York are themselves the essence of the (New York and) "American story."