This month in RE history: Bank façade to be rebuilt in Met Museum, Essex Market to rid streets of pushcarts … and more

The entrance to the Met’s American wing
The entrance to the Met’s American wing

From the November issue: The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the gift of a new American art wing — a gift that included the magnificent edifice of an old bank, which was to be reconstructed within the museum — 93 years ago this month.

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The Early American Art wing would house art, household objects and period furniture from the Colonial, Revolutionary and Early Republic periods of the U.S. in a three-story building containing 18 exhibition rooms. To enter the wing, visitors would pass through the Westchester marble facade of the United States Assay Office for Manhattan, previously at 15 Wall Street, the New York Times reported. The Assay Office was slated to be demolished in 1924 before Robert de Forest, the museum president, rescued it. The rooms of a mansion, the Wentworth-Gardner, from New Hampshire, were also acquired by the museum to be installed in the wing’s rooms. [more]