city reliquary

oriana on 31 Mar ’11

neighborhood: williamsburg | space type: micro-museum | active since: 2002 | links: website, facebook, twitter, tumblr

I’ve loved City Reliquary for years. It’s right on Metropolitan Ave., and I pass by it at least once a month, always delighted to find a new bizarre and beautiful display in the front window, whether it’s an array of Pez dispensers, ceramic unicorns, pizza magnets, or postcards from the Queens World’s Fair. In fact, City Reliquary started out around the corner from its current location as just a window, the street-facing window of founder Dave Herman’s apartment, which he filled with his own collection of Statue of Liberty figurines and other New York ephemera.

all photos in this post by Maximus Comissar

Now, like Proteus Gowanus, City Reliquary is a non-profit community-based micro-museum. The Reliquary is slightly broader in scope, with a permanent collection of NYC artifacts, including a selection of Subway tokens, a picture gallery of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the original 2nd Avenue Deli sign, among much, much more. Even the bathroom houses its own micro-micro-gallery of old-timey tincture and lotion bottles. Though the museum is certainly tiny, you’ll want to spend a while poring through the staggering amount of amazing stuff crammed into it. They also have terrific events and fundraisers, including the monthly THird THursday party, Show and Tell open mics, an annual block-long street party called Bicycle Fetish Day, and more.

Q&A with Bill, City Reliquary’s president

brooklyn spaces: Tell me about some of the exhibits you’ve had.
Bill: We just took down one that was all photographs of streetlights. It was one guy’s personal collection, and he told the histories of each one, when they disappeared, stuff like that. We found him through a guy named Kevin Walsh who runs a great website called Forgotten New York.

brooklyn spaces: What’s the current exhibit about?
Bill: It’s a guy who’s eating a slice of pizza from every pizzeria in Manhattan, and he takes a picture of every slice and the restaurant where he got it.

brooklyn spaces: How often does the exhibit change?
Bill: It depends how long it takes us to get the next one together. We tried to do a new every month, but it was just too much.

brooklyn spaces: And are they always New York–centric?
Bill: Yes. The only thing that isn’t New York–centric is the window up front, Community Collections. That showcases collections by different New Yorkers.

brooklyn spaces: Why Brooklyn? Why Williamsburg?
Bill: Just circumstance. We didn’t pick the neighborhood; Dave lived here, this space opened up, we moved in.

brooklyn spaces: What’s the relationship with the community?
Bill: Everyone’s been really great. Saltie and Roebling Tea Room have donated food for benefits, Momofuku donates cookies, sometimes we hold events at the Knitting Factory.

brooklyn spaces: Anything else you want to tell the world about the museum?
Bill: Our hours are noon to six, Thursday through Sunday. Come to the events, they’re great fun. We always have Brooklyn beer at them.

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Like this? Read about more micro-museums: Proteus Gowanus, Micro Museum

proteus gowanus

oriana on 22 Jan ’11

neighborhood: gowanus | space type: museum & events | active since: summer 2005 | links: website, facebook

The first time I went to Proteus Gowanus, I couldn’t find it. I walked around and around the block, checking and re-checking the address, and getting more and more confused. Finally I peered down a dubious-looking alley just around the corner from where it should have been, and sure enough, there was light spilling from a doorway halfway down. So, word to the wise: Proteus Gowanus is a little bit hidden, but it’s there.

Housed in a box-making factory from the 1900s, Proteus Gowanus is a multipurpose art space with a lot going on. It includes an art gallery with rotating and permanent exhibits, a micro-museum, a library, a reading and study room, an event space, and a collaborative nonprofit boutique of unique publications and “protean objects.” Proteus Gowanus has a broad scope, but all of its disparate parts come together to make a varied, fascinating whole.

Among their exhibits and projects:

  • The Observatory Room, an interdisciplinary event space that hosts discussions, film screenings, and lectures on a wide range of topics, from Parisian brothels to Italian medical museums to Haitian voodoo to American cartoons. (I’ve been to three Observatory events, and they’ve all been amazing.)
  • Morbid Anatomy, an outgrowth of the blog by the same name, featuring a collection of books, photographs, ephemera, and artifacts relating to anatomical art, cabinets of curiosity, the history of medicine, death and mortality, memorial practice, arcane media, and other topics.
  • Hall of the Gowanus, a micro-museum of local curiosities, including old Gowanus maps, pressed flowers from the region, a Gowanus historical timeline, and much more.

Hall of the Gowanus

  • The Fixers Collective, an idea that grew out of an exhibit in the gallery, which encourages people to bring in something broken, which the collective members make a collaborative effort to restore, mend, repurpose, or enhance.
  • The Reanimation Library, an almost whimsical permanent collection of outdated, worn, or discarded books.

Reanimation Library

  • Proteotypes, which extends some of Proteus Gowanus’s shows and exhibitions into the field of printed matter.
  • dedicated to assembling apparently incongruous ideas or forms to construct surprising yet meaningful compounds and dialogues.
  • The Writhing Society, a weekly class/salon dedicated to constrained writing.
  • A study hall and writers space in all galleries and reading rooms. (Membership only $50/mo!)

(photos from the Proteus Gowanus Facebook page)

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Like this? Read about other micro-museums: City Reliquary, Micro Museum