I would also like to note, and perhaps this is the intercession of fate, but…
As the Springfield Republican published this excellent editorial endorsing a potential move of our FDR Center Museum from Worcester to Chicopee today, Democrats were simultaneously gathering this morning in nearby Amherst for the 2007 Massachusetts Democratic Party Convention. Perhaps they can read all about us with their glass of orange juice and scrambled eggs this morning…
EDITORIAL
THE REPUBLICAN
Bully for Chicopee
Saturday, May 19, 2007
“I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people,” proclaimed President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
No word yet on whether Chicopee has struck a deal with the founder of a museum dedicated to FDR, but negotiations are under way to house the historic collection in the Hampden County city.
Dr. Joseph J. Plaud is the president and founder of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Heritage Center and Museum, which is leaving its current home in Worcester this summer. He was in Chicopee this week to tour the historic library at Market Square as a possible site.
This would be a feather in Chicopee’s cap, or, more appropriately, its gray felt Fedora hat, a favorite of the New Deal architect and one of the 10,000 FDR-related items in the museum collection.
Also, Plaud is discussing the creation of an FDR study institute at Elms College with its president, James H. Mullen Jr.
Plaud was invited to Chicopee by Mayor Michael D. Bissonnette, who had heard that the museum needed a new home.
As his distant cousin, Teddy Roosevelt, might say, “Bully for you, Chicopee.”
I urge you to support our mission to preserve the legacies of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the New Deal by visiting our website and our Emergency Action Page. Thank you.
I’m curious; what kind of attendance do you see? While I can think of a hundred great ideas for museums, I think that they need to have some kind of demand-based viability in order for them to exist. I’m not sure what the benefit would be of a low-traffic museum to any community, so attendance would be the measuring stick I would use as to whether it makes sense for a community to “pursue” such a venture.