Barnum Museum coming back from tornado damage
July 25, 2016 | In the PressFrom ctpost.com (http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Barnum-Museum-coming-back-from-tornado-damage-8407377.php)
A show of good faith to the tune of a $500,000 grant has been awarded by the Department of Economic and Community Development to downtown Bridgeport’s Barnum Museum in an effort to advance the site’s rehabilitation, preserve precious artifacts, and stimulate the city’s economy.
“The Barnum is the beacon of culture for the city of Bridgeport,” said Alice Ferreira, the Chair of Board of Directors at the Barnum Museum. “Its revitalization will create an economic surge from the people and businesses coming into Bridgeport.”
“It is a challenge to respond to the community and public perception, but we are taking it one step at a time and just focusing on the building,” Barnum Museum Executive Director Kathy Maher said. “This is not just a museum renovation, but an economic development project.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency helped to cover damage costs early on, but conflicting policies between the city of Bridgeport and the Barnum Foundation make it problematic in determining who is liable for insuring the building.
This is not the first grant that the museum has received, and it will certainly not be the last. In 2013, $183,510 was donated from the State Historic Preservation Office exclusively for construction on the third floor, and this amount was matched by the city of Bridgeport, making the total sum approximately $400,000 for the endeavor.
Ferreira and Maher are confident that they will find the right private investors to equal the new $500,000 grant in order to raise even more financial capital.
Among the list of backers, state representatives have made sure to bolster this project.
“I, along with the Bridgeport legislative delegation unanimously voted and pushed for this grant,” said Steven Stafstrom, currently representing District 129. “We must rebuild this museum as a bastion of strength because it is important for the state to be a part of this development; we will certainly not rest here and seek additional funds in the future.”
The blueprints for utilizing the grant money is already mobilized and will involve implementing drawings for the museum’s dome stabalization, but the next phase will be determined by how the current one pans out.
“One of the biggest issues is that we still need to find more concealed damage that we do not know about yet,” Maher said. “The building may be structurally sound, but it is not environmentally safe and abatements are in order.”
Maher hopes that the funds will be exhausted in just one calendar year.
“We were unexpectedly hit by a tornado, so we had no time to react,” Maher said. “When you look at it, we have already raised and invested close to $4 million, and we are ahead of the curve.”
The National Endowment for Artifact Restoration showed support for the museum last month by giving $190,000 in order to maintain the exhibits, which is the product and pride of the gallery.
“These grants are a clear indication that the state values the museum and we have already seen the public get behind this tremendous resource,” Ferreira said. “We want businesses to come and see an incubator for vibrant ideas, just like Barnum did.”
The importance of both the museum and P.T. Barnum cannot be understated, Mahr said, noting that visitors to the museum put money back into the local economy.
Employees at the Barnum are coming to the realization that the museum is not just a name known only to natives of Bridgeport.
“History cannot be fairly interpreted without Barnum,” Maher said. “You cannot deny his importance to American history, and one thing that the museum has learned is that he is not just a local icon, but a global one. We get almost 100,000 uniques to the website annually and are often answering research questions from around the world.”
