A house is not a museum

Your house is part of a community. A museum is a place you visit to see art and artifacts.

That was my reaction last week when the leadership of George Eastman House announced a rebranding of its facility and website, rechristening itself the George Eastman Museum. The announcement said "museum" helped differentiate the place for European visitors, for whom "house" meant "institute."

Eastman's house? Viewed from East Avenue, it's a stunning mansion built by the founder of Eastman Kodak Company, who died in 1932. A more-modern museum, film archive, and research department is attached to the back of the original mansion. 
Drawing Room, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY. (c) DKassnoff, 2010.

I'm debating whether the name change means more than a PR move. "House," to me, meant more than "museum." It says that George lived there -- made his big decisions about business, life, and death. (At an advanced age and in poor health, he took his own life in his bedroom.) Rochester and New York state have plenty of museums, but few visitors assume the historical figures whose works are on display ever lived there.

The Eastman house's director apparently isn't a fan of such dwellings. In his first months at the helm, he took on a very public joust against a local developer who bought property adjoining Eastman's. The developer wanted to build apartments and had zoning laws on his side. The developer won, and the director spent some political capital before getting stakeholders on his side.

He doesn't care for apartments next door. He doesn't care to call Eastman's place a house. But perceptions often are reality. It's a house with galleries, gardens, and archives, and it sits next to an apartment structure. That sounds like a neighborhood to me.

I hope I'm wrong about this, and George Eastman Museum gains a larger following. 

In my corporate life, I spent hours explaining to journalists that George's house was not "the Kodak museum." This name change isn't going to alter that perception, either. 

Popular posts from this blog

Questioning the New York (Times) Athletic Club

Image
The New York Times dropped the axe on its legendary sports department in early July. Sports reporting we read in the Times henceforth will originate with The Athletic, a younger (and perhaps more agile) sportswriting website purchased by the NYT Corp.  You'll find a good assessment of the move here .  As a Times subscriber, I have automatic access to any sports reporting it produces. I won't call it "free access," however, because my ever-increasing monthly rate for a three-day Times subscription surely will include a tithe to cover the Athletic.  But ditching the Times ' sports desk and dispersing its fine sports journalists and photographers to other NYT jobs? That's a loss. Here's why: Conflict of interest: The Athletic allows its staff to report on sports gambling, while some are paid contractors of the sportsbook companies. Is there a Pete Rose-style conflict here? I'd expect so. The Times allowed no double-dipping within its sports staff. The s
Read more

Your hand's already in my pocket

Image
I use an ad blocker, and probably you do, too. Every day, even on websites where I pay a monthly subscription fee, I see a pop-up that say: "We Notice You Are Using an Ad Blocker." And they ask me to turn it off. I don't. I'm already paying for that news website's reporting. Their hands are already in my pocket. And, truth is, I don't mind digital ads that are somewhat relevant to my tastes. Show me an ad for a guitar deal or Ford car parts, and I'll probably read it. Screen shot, unnamed Gannett publication, Sept. 2018 But I don't care about Patrick Swayze's secret son. Or what forgotten 1970s actress Loni Anderson looks like today. (I was more of a Howard Hesseman /Dr. Johnny Fever fan, anyway.) When newspapers relied on print ad revenue, I'd glance at those ads -- and sometimes, I'd bite -- because those ads were for local or regional merchants. They wanted to build a relationship with me.  They didn't try
Read more

Readers get the (drive) shaft in motorsports coverage

Image
In mid-August, the U.S.'s premier auto racing sport will compete at a road racing course in Watkins Glen, NY. NASCAR's brutish Cup series cars will race in this rural community Aug. 20.  May 2023, Charlotte Motor Speedway. (c) DKassnoff, 2023. But, don't expect  The New York Times  to cover NASCAR before then. The newspaper's sports section -- now outsourced to The Athletic, its sportsbook subsidiary -- hasn't covered NASCAR since July 2. That's when NASCAR's drivers competed on the rain-soaked streets of Chicago. The Times provided no coverage of their July 30 race in Richmond, VA, or any NASCAR race since early July. The Times  has focused its motorsports coverage on Formula 1 racing. These are the expensive, open-wheeled, high performance racing teams once called Grand Prix. This class of racing is controlled by another media company: John Malone's Liberty Media, which purchased Formula 1 in 2017 and returned it to profitability. Visit the Times '
Read more