Downtown sports museum nears opening

The Sports Museum of America, billed as the city’s first major sports museum and the first national sports museum, is slated to open Wednesday. The museum’s exhibits will take up 45,000 square feet at 26 Broadway, the landmarked Standard Oil building at the corner of Beaver Street. A single gallery is devoted to the original Heisman Trophy, which from 1935 to 2001 had been awarded to the best college football player a few blocks away at the Downtown Athletic Club. The ceremony moved to Midtown after the club closed, but will return to the new museum. The museum will cover 30 sports with 600 artifacts, 1,100 photographs and 20 original films. It received $52 million in tax-free Liberty Bonds.