A budget surplus enabled New York City to give the Museum of Modern Art $65 million toward an expansion and renovation.
“From the time that I became mayor, it has been my goal to convince everyone that our cultural institutions are part of our economy, they’re an industry,” Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said Thursday. “This is about as intelligent a thing as you could do for $65 million.”
The city’s offering — 10 percent of the total $650 million cost of the project — will “help to preserve, enhance and expand an invaluable cultural treasure,” Giuliani said.
Banker David Rockefeller, whose family helped found the museum in 1929 and is its chairman emeritus, said the institution has collected $200 million toward the $585 million it wants to raise from private sources.
More than a million art patrons and tourists visit the midtown Manhattan museum each year. The city budget surplus is expected to reach $2 billion this year.
