Ukrainian Museum offers progress report on building project

by Roman Hawrylak

NEW YORK - In order to provide its public with information concerning the building of a new museum facility on East Sixth Street in New York City, the Board of Trustees of The Ukrainian Museum utilizes broad means of communication including the media, The following is a summary of what has already been accomplished and what is scheduled for the next few months.

The building committee of the board works closely with George Sawicki (Greenfleld, Sawicki, Tarella, Architects, PC), the architect developing the new museum project following several years of preparatory work and raising funds. Efforts are now proceeding at an accelerated pace in order to bring the project to its realization. Although the old building on Sixth Street still remains in its original state, with only a prominent sign announcing the site as the new home of the Museum, much progress on the project has already been made.

Until now only the interior of the existing structure was demolished in order to ascertain the conditions of the foundation and interior framework of the building. This occured in the fall of 1996 and was one of the first tasks in the project following the signing of the contract with the architect on June 22, 1996.

Subsequently the building committee began to work with the architect on various detailed aspects of the project, which included considerations of the museum's special needs, determining the layout to specifications of the interior, and completing the specifics of the design of the facade. This was a lengthy process, since it involved dealing with the special requirements of the museum, as well as with the space and budget limitations of the project.

From June 1996 to this day, the committee held twelve marathon sessions with the architect, during which the above mentioned topics and problems were dealt with diligently and with careful attention to countless details. On March 8, 1997, the final architectural design plans were approved by the board.

Currently, the architect, working with structural, electrical, mechanical and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) engineers, is working to design the final construction plans and documents according to which the new museum facility will be built. This phase of the project is expected to be completed by the end of August 1997, at which time the plans will be presented to New York City officials for review and approval. A list of contractors who will be asked to submit their bids for the job of building the new museum facility is being prepared, from which one will be selected.

It is expected that the contract with the winning bidder will be signed in September and construction of the building will begin in the fall. The construction phase is expected to last about ten months and optimistically, at the end of 1998, The Ukrainian Museum in New York City will have a new home.

Intensive work was being done on the building project for a very long time although at the actual site there was little evidence of such. However this work, carried out behind the scenes, so to speak, was very necessary because the requirements of a museum building are very complex. It was necessary to take the time to do the job thoroughly, because changes implemented after the approval of architectural plans are extremely costly.

At this time our task and that of our community is to raise the needed funds to complete this project.

Mr. Hawrylak is the chairman of the building committee of The Ukrainian Museum.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, August 31, 1997, No. 35, Vol. LXV

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