Museum of the Confederacy Looks To State For Help
By Deborah Fitts
April 2005
RICHMOND, Va. - The Museum of the Confederacy is now
looking to the Virginia legislature to help solve its predicament: a
slow strangulation as high-rises go up around it.
At presstime in February the museum had a bill pending in the General
Assembly that called for establishing a com-mission to study the
problem. S. Waite Rawls, the museum's executive director, said the
initiative could result in a state subsidy for the century-old museum.
Visitation to the 12th and Clay streets facility has dropped by a
third in the last decade. Museum officials blame the aggressive
growth of their next-door neighbor, the medical college campus of
Virginia Commonwealth University. VCU's plans this year for a new
14-story building were expected to aggravate the museum's plight.
"We feel that a great part of our predicament is due to state action
in the growth of the hospital, which is a state agency," Rawls said.
"We would be very content to stay where we are but for that action."
Last fall Rawls detailed three choices faced by the museum's
29-member board: stay and continue to lose visitors; move away,
including moving the 1818 building known as the White House of the
Confederacy, Jefferson Davis's home; or move the museum and leave the
house in its original location - "probably the worst option,"
according to Rawls, because visitors would have to travel to the
house by shuttle bus.
"I really wish we could come up with a solution that includes
staying, but I don't know if that's possible," Rawls said.
He predicted "not a high probability" that the state will agree to
subsidize the museum. But he said formation of the commission would
help generate public awareness and "grassroots support."
The museum urged its membership to e-mail state legislators in
support of the commission. Rawls said a senior member of the House of
Delegates told him he received more than a hundred e-mails - a rare
response to any issue. Most came from out of state, and several even
from abroad.
"I laughed and said, 'Welcome to the world of the Civil War buff,'"
Rawls said. "He was incredibly impressed."
The board was slated to decide the museum's fate this winter, but
Rawls acknowledged that timetable was now out the window. The
commission, if it is formed, is due to complete its work by Nov. 30,
although Rawls said he hopes it could be done this summer.
"Things are moving more slowly than I like, but we're trying to be as
deliberate as possible because it's a decision for generations,"
Rawls said. "A broad consensus is important. A good decision is
better than a fast one."
Meanwhile, he said the new VCU building is going up, with all the
disruption that he had feared.
"You're living with jackhammers and big cranes," Rawls said. "Traffic
is rerouted and there are temporary signs everywhere. It's an
unpleasant experience, and that's what our visitors are going to have
to put up with for the next 10 years." |
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