New building for New Museum
BY GABE HERMAN
The New Museum will be adding a new building
.T
he Lower East Side art museum — which
focuses on contemporary art — announced details of
its plan for a second building, which will rise next to
its current location.
The new addition will be at 231 Bowery, at Prince
St. Sporting seven fl oors, it will enclose 60,000
square feet, including 11,000 square feet of exhibition
space across three fl oors of galleries. It will
double the museum’s overall exhibition space.
The galleries will be on the second, third and
fourth fl oors, and be able to connect with existing
galleries in the original building. Ceiling heights
will be aligned, to allow for bigger exhibition spaces,
though the galleries will also be able to be used separately.
The new building’s ground fl oor will include an 80-
seat restaurant, an expanded lobby, a bookstore and a
public plaza. The fi fth fl oor will house NEW INC, an
arts organization that the museum calls a cultural incubator
and includes people in such fi elds as the arts,
business and urban design.
The sixth fl oor will have a studio for an artist-inresidence
and a forum space for events. Events will
also be on the seventh fl oor, as well as educational
COURTESY OMA
A rendering of the New Museum’s planned new
building, at center right, which will be just to
the right of the museum’s original location.
programming.
“The building gives us the opportunity to continue
to experiment with new formats and models around
various areas of programmatic focus,” said Massimiliano
Gioni, the New Museum’s artistic director.
“These areas include new productions and ambitious
new commissions; contextual exhibition presentations;
studio space for artist residencies; and international
partnerships and collaborations with peer
institutions around the world.”
The New Museum opened 12 years ago. It bought
the current building next door, which has 50,000
square feet, for additional space for various programs.
The new building at that site is to be designed
by Offi ce for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), a
Dutch fi rm, along with Shohei Shigematsu and Rem
Koolhaas, and in collaboration with Cooper Robertson.
“Since the New Museum opened on the Bowery
in December 2007, the museum has become an international
cultural destination welcoming millions
of visitors,” said Lisa Phillips, the New Museum’s
director. “We are thrilled to work with OMA to address
our current and future needs, and selected them
for their exceptional response to our brief, their civic
passion and future thinking. The OMA design will
provide seamless connectivity and horizontal fl ow
between the two buildings, expanded space for our
world-renowned exhibitions, and access to some of
our most innovative programs that the public currently
cannot see.”
The new building will be named after Toby Devan
Lewis, a longtime trustee of the museum, following a
lead gift of $20 million, which is the largest donation
in the museum’s history.
Finger-lickin’ Ethiopian at Queen of Sheba
BY GABE HERMAN
Queen of Sheba has been serving
Ethiopian food in Hell’s Kitchen
for nearly two decades, and
is still going strong with a wide array
of tasty dishes from owner and
chef Philipos Mengistu.
Before Mengistu moved to
America in 1990 with dreams
of opening an Ethiopian restaurant
in New York City,
he learned the craft in a restaurant
that his parents ran
in Addis Ababa. He even
imported his mother’s
berbere hot sauce from
Ethiopia when he opened
his own restaurant here in
February 2001.
The small restaurant, at
650 Tenth Ave., at W. 46 St.,
has an intimate atmosphere,
with a few tables in the front
and a bar, and a slightly bigger
area in back with more seating.
The chicken, beef, lamb, fi sh and
vegetarian dishes are all served with injera,
a sourdough fl atbread with a spongelike
texture.
All dishes are served over a rolled-out
piece of injera, and several more rolled-up
pieces of the bread are brought, as well.
The injera is fi lling and the dish portions
PHOTO BY GABE HERMAN
A beef sambousa appetizer at
Queen of Sheba.
are generous, so skip a meal beforehand to
maximize the experience.
It’s encouraged to eat with your hands
— picking up portions of the foods by using
pieces of injera — so the tables are not set
with any utensils. A fork, knife and spoon
will be provided if asked for, but you might
get a disappointed look from the server.
Appetizers, ranging from about $5 to
$9, include sambousa, which are dough
pockets with some spiciness and fi lled
with either beef or lentils; avocado salad;
tomato salad; and azifa, which has lentils,
onions and chili peppers mashed in a mustard
vinaigrette.
Main dishes range from about $14 to
$20, and there are also lunch specials, and
20 percent off the fi rst online order. The
restaurant is open seven days a week. More
information can be found at shebanyc.
com.
PHOTO BY GABE HERMAN
Two big pieces of tilapia over injera bread.
18 July 11, 2019 TVG Schneps Media