New-York Historical Society Opens Tang Wing for American Democracy

The New-York Historical Society (NYH), New York City's oldest museum founded in 1804, has opened the Tang Wing for American Democracy, a four-story, 71,000-square-foot addition at 170 Central Park West. Designed by architect Robert A.M. Stern, who died last year, the wing includes an open-air sculpture court, a roof garden, classrooms, the museum's first on-site conservation lab, and future quarters for the American L.G.B.T.Q.+ Museum (beginning 2028). The soft opening coincides with the country's 250th anniversary observances. Among the ready spaces are the Stuart and Jane Weitzman Shoe Museum, displaying historic American female footwear from the 19th-century suffrage era to the present, and a corridor exhibition titled “Queer Joy/Gay power” featuring photographs by Fred W. McDarrah documenting the 1969 Stonewall Inn uprising.