Museum of Arts and Design
ORG
Museum of Arts and Design
Arriving on her first day as director of the Museum of Arts and Design 10 years ago, Holly Hotchner was greeted by an eviction notice, a bookkeeper who said the museum could not make payroll and a rat scurrying across the floor of her sub-basement office. The museum, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this fall, was founded as the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in a Victorian brownstone at 29 West 53rd Street by Aileen Osborn Webb, a leading crafts patron and benefactor. In 2002, the museum changed its name to the Museum of Arts and Design to better reflect its focus, which now includes architecture, fashion, interior design, technology and performing arts as well as crafts, art and design.