Come November, New York City gets its own Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum. Mayor Bloomberg kicked off press conference with Billy Joel, Clive Davis and the museum’s President Terry Stewart. NYTimes report says that the 25,000-square-foot annex, at 76 Mercer Street, will be the museum’s first expansion outside Cleveland and will include exhibitions on Hall of Fame inductees and on the history of rock in New York. It will also house temporary and traveling exhibitions from the Cleveland headquarters, museum officials said.

More details from BizBash. Also onsite: a theater that will use “immersive” audiovisual technology to showcase historical performances from the likes of Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Chuck Berry, and The Who. NYC & Company has partnered with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum to develop an exhibit dubbed “New York Rocks.” This is to be an interactive map of locations in the city with some musical significance. Branded items and promotional merchandise such as maps and itineraries will be sold at the store.

Take that, Ohio - One less reason to go all the way to Cleveland. Although the NYT article also quotes Terry Stewart, the museum’s President, as saying that opening a branch in NYC is part of a grand scheme to ‘drive tourist traffic’ all the way back to Cleveland. If that is their intention behind opening an NYC outpost, then its a bone-headed venture. I think I’ll wager a bet that the main museum in Cleveland gets even less visitors than before.

Whatever the reasoning, end result is that NYC gets one more museum, and this one literally rocks. And the count of things to do on vacation in the Big Apple keeps going up, and so do the tourist dollars. Last year 46 million people came to New York City. This year and the next, with the NYC Waterfalls and other new stuff like this Rock n’Roll Museum and the Waterboard Thrill Ride in Coney Island, gonna be a lot more visitors. 

Visit www.rockhall.com for details and more info about the museum.

Posted on August 17th, 2008 by Thomas
Filed under: Art & Museums, NYC