The City Reliquary in Brooklyn might be the best New York museum you've never heard of. In a city that boasts the Guggenheim, The Met, The MoMA, The Whitney and countless galleries, it's no wonder that the City Reliquary got lost among the myriad options available to museum visitors in NYC.
The museum explains their mission best: "The City Reliquary is a not-for-profit community museum and civic organization located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Through permanent display of New York City artifacts, rotating exhibits of community collections, and annual cultural events, The City Reliquary connects visitors to both the past and present of New York."
This week, Gothamist had a revealing interview with the founder of the City Reliquary, Dave Herman, on topics like his favorite things to collect for the museum, as well as the inevitable question of "why?"
So what do you display in a museum dedicated to both the past and the present? According to Herman, it's not an exact process: "A small, never-before-seen object can tell an elaborate story... But some things become obscure just because people have lost interest in them. Often, items that were once very mundane fall into obscurity. This is what interests me the most."
If you're in New York or on your way there, check out the City Reliquary at 370 Metropolitan Avenue in Brooklyn.
Below, an quirky interview with Herman from 2007.