Crane Museum of America, the country’s first museum of papermaking, opened Monday in a historic building at the intersection of Third Street and West Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn.
The new facility is the result of a $7.2 million gift from the New York State Department of Conservation, which included a $1 million donation from the National Park Foundation and $1.2 billion from the Ford Foundation.
The museum’s first project is a $250,000 gift from a New York-based nonprofit, The National Parks Foundation.
Its goal is to create a permanent collection of more than 30,000 rare paper items in New York state and other states and create an exhibit space in the museum’s new headquarters.
The museum’s permanent collection will include a collection of around 6,000 items and more than 1,000 new materials, including hand-cut paper, ink, watercolors and decorative materials, according to the museum.
The new museum will be a hub for the art and culture of paper making and a showcase for the country, said Whitney Cummings, the museum founder and president.
The papermaking project began in 2011 with a $500,000 grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute and the New England Museum of Art, which partnered with Crane.
The grants were the first to help pay for the building, which is expected to open in 2021.
Cummings and the museum say they will build on the museum space’s historic, historic building.
The project is not planned to house the museum itself, but rather to serve as a showcase and a learning center for the public.
Coupled with the New Museum of Fine Arts in Brooklyn and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, Crane’s museum will have more than 500,000 objects from the national collection and the national collections of over 150 countries.
In its original construction, the building’s roof was nearly two stories, Cummings said.
It was “built to be one of the tallest structures in New Jersey,” she said.
Cox said the museum will bring a mix of the nation’s history and culture and the world’s craftsmanship.
The exhibit hall will be designed to give visitors a taste of paper, but will be open to the public, with an exhibit hall and a gift shop.
It will be the first time in more than a century that the museum has hosted an exhibition hall, and the first in the United States.
The National Park will be an exhibitor for the first three years, then Cummings said she hopes to expand the show.
The Crane Museum will be located at 3 West Fifth Ave.
in New Brunswick.
The building is the third museum in New England to open.
The first was a $2.5 million gift to the National Museum in Washington, D.C.