The Hudson River Museum, located in Trevor Park in

Yonkers, New York Yonkers () is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. Developed along the Hudson River, it is the third most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City and Buffalo. The population of Yonkers was 211,569 as enu ...

, is the largest museum in

Westchester County Westchester County is located in the U.S. state of New York. It is the seventh most populous county in the State of New York and the most populous north of New York City. According to the 2020 United States Census, the county had a population o ...

. The Yonkers Museum, founded in 1919 at

City Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

, became the Hudson River Museum in 1948. While often considered an art museum by the public, due to the extensive collection of

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area, ...

paintings, the museum also features exhibits on the

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

and

heritage Heritage may refer to: History and society * A heritage asset is a preexisting thing of value today ** Cultural heritage is created by humans ** Natural heritage is not * Heritage language Biology * Heredity, biological inheritance of physical c ...

of the region.

History

Founded in 1919 as the Yonkers Museum, the facility was also known as the Yonkers Museum of Science and the Arts, prior to being named the Hudson River Museum. The museum originally contained a number of mineral specimens housed in Yonkers

. Photographer

Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr. Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr. (August 7, 1862 – April 25, 1932)Turner Browne and Elaine Partnow, ''MacMillan Biographical Encyclopedia of Photographic Artists and Innovators'' (New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1983), pp. 172-173. was an Ameri ...

, a lifelong resident of Yonkers, played a key role in the creation of the museum, as did sculptor

Isidore Konti Isidore Konti (July 9, 1862 – January 11, 1938) was a Vienna-born (of Hungarian parents) sculptor. He began formal art studies at the age of 16 when he entered the Imperial Academy in Vienna, where he studied under Edmund von Hellmer.''Colle ...

, and George J. Stengel. Central to its history is the Glenview Mansion, a house built in 1877 from a design by American architect Charles W. Clinton, and once the home of one

John Bond Trevor John Bond Trevor (1822–1890) was an American financier and Wall Street pioneer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Volume 32. 1945. pp. 360. he moved to New York City in 1849. In 1850 he became a ...

. Home of the museum for 45 years from 1929, the house now forms a large part of the Hudson River Museum. It contains six period rooms displaying furniture and decor from that era. In 1972 it was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. The Museum is accredited by the

American Alliance of Museums American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

, a mark of excellence it has maintained since 1974. The rooms on public display feature carved woodwork by

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

cabinetmaker

Daniel Pabst Daniel Pabst (June 11, 1826 – July 15, 1910) was a German-born American Victorian decorative arts#Furniture, cabinetmaker of the Victorian Era. He is credited with some of the most extraordinary custom interiors and hand-crafted furniture in th ...

. In 1979, artist

Red Grooms Red Grooms (born Charles Rogers Grooms on June 7, 1937) is an American multimedia artist best known for his colorful pop art, pop-art constructions depicting frenetic scenes of modern urban life. Grooms was given the nickname "Red" by Dominic ...

created and installed "The Bookstore" at Hudson River Museum, where it is on permanent display. The museum is the home of the

Andrus Planetarium Andrus may refer to: Places *Andrus Island, island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, California, United States *Mount Andrus, shield volcano in Antarctica Given name Surname *Bart Andrus (born 1958), American football coach * Bill An ...

, the only public planetarium in Westchester County. It added the planetarium in 1969 to celebrate the beginning of the

Space Age The Space Age is a period encompassing the activities related to the Space Race, space exploration, space technology, and the cultural developments influenced by these events, beginning with the Sputnik_1#Launch_and_mission, launch of Sputnik 1 ...

and the increasing interest in space. The planetarium was one part of the museum's expansion throughout the 1960s, which also included the construction of larger and more modern facilities to house its collections, followed by the restoration of the ground floor of the Glenview house to its 19th-century condition. The planetarium and its laser shows are credited with driving the museum's 30% increase in attendance in the early 1990s. The museum's

diversity Diversity, diversify, or diverse may refer to: Business *Diversity (business), the inclusion of people of different identities (ethnicity, gender, age) in the workforce *Diversity marketing, marketing communication targeting diverse customers * ...

is part of what led to its citation as one of the most unusual cultural facilities by the

New York State Council on the Arts The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) is an arts council serving the U.S. state of New York. It was established in 1960 through a bill introduced in the New York State Legislature by New York State Senator MacNeil Mitchell (1905–1996), ...

in 1972. It has sought to maintain this diversity amidst changes in leadership and focus throughout its history. The diversity is apparent in the museum's site, on which a 2006 expansion attempted to better join the Glenview Mansion with the modern 1969 additions. The museum used its namesake, the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

, as the core of its 75th anniversary celebration in 1994. It celebrated its centennial in 2019. In March 2014, the museum completed a renovation of the planetarium and installed a new Megastar which is capable of displaying up to 22 million stars compared to its

Zeiss projector A Zeiss projector is one of a line of planetarium projectors manufactured by the Carl Zeiss Company. Main models include Copernican (1924), Model I (1925), Model II (1926), Model III (1957), Model IV (1957), Model V (1965), Model VI (1968) ...

which displayed up to 5,000 stars. Since 1995 the museum has offered a Junior Docent Program; the program was recognized by the

President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) was an advisory committee to the White House on cultural issues. It worked directly with the Administration and the three primary cultural agencies: the National Endowment for the Art ...

with a

Coming Up Taller Award The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) was an advisory committee to the White House on cultural issues. It worked directly with the Administration and the three primary cultural agencies: the National Endowment for the Art ...

in 2008. In November 2020, the museum broke ground on an expansion project, adding a wing to the campus. The new wing will house special exhibition space, a 100-seat auditorium, an interior sculpture garden, and art storage space, also allowing the museum to display more of its permanent collection.

In popular culture

The museum's Glenview Mansion appears in HBO's series '' The Gilded Age'', an American historical drama television series created by

Julian Fellowes Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford, (born 17 August 1949) is an English actor, novelist, film director and screenwriter, and a Conservative peer of the House of Lords. He is primarily known as the author of s ...

, which premiered in January 2022.

Funding

The late 1980s was a difficult time for the Hudson River Museum when it faced a decrease in funding, uncertainties in future funding, and a high level of staff turnover. The museum was forced to reduce its operating hours and cut some programming, but was able to expand the planetarium. The facility experienced a resurgence in the 1990s, received a number of grants and awards, saw increased funding from

, and was able to expand in time for its 75th anniversary. The museum also saw its attendance almost double from 55,000 to 100,000 between 1990 and 1994. The late 1990s saw a downturn in funding and the museum was again forced to face significant cutbacks. In the wake of these cutbacks, the museum began to host private events and offer tours, particularly to groups of school children, as a means of increasing income.

References

External links

Hudson River Museum
{{authority control Art museums and galleries in New York (state) Hudson River Buildings and structures in Yonkers, New York Historic house museums in Westchester County, New York Museums in Westchester County, New York Natural history museums in New York (state) Planetaria in the United States Culture of Yonkers, New York Government buildings completed in 1877 Art museums established in 1919 1919 establishments in New York (state) Buildings and structures completed in 1969 Brutalist architecture in New York (state)