NY Historical Society: WWII & NYC

This article was originally published on March 16, 2013

The NY Historical Society had a great idea in creating its current show, WWII & NYC, but unfortunately failed in its execution.  The exhibit, which the viewer sees while winding his/her way through narrow corridors, is filled with artifacts that may be interesting in themselves but are never organized into a cohesive whole that would provide a sense of what it was actually like to live in the city during that period any more than would a random assortment of newspaper or magazine clippings. 

The first items in the exhibit trace the beginnings of the nuclear age.  What looks like a rusted boiler turns out to be the device first used in enriching uranium-235.  Placed before it is Albert Einstein's fateful letter to Franklin Roosevelt in which the former urged the administration to push forward with the development of atomic weapons.  It's a simple, carefully typed letter typical of academic correspondence.  One wonders how carefully Einstein must have pondered its contents before affixing his signature.  Would this proponent of peace ever have involved himself if he had knows that horrors that would be unleashed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki only a few years later?  As the Wikipedia entry notes:

"On the eve of World War II, he helped alert President Franklin D. Roosevelt that Germany might be developing an atomic weapon, and recommended that the U.S. begin similar research; this eventually led to what would become the Manhattan Project. Einstein was in support of defending the Allied forces, but largely denounced using the new discovery of nuclear fission as a weapon. Later, with the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, Einstein signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, which highlighted the danger of nuclear weapons."

The artwork included in the exhibit is generally on the heroic scale and is represented primarily by Thomas Hart Benton, the Midwesterner whose Regionalist style fits poorly with any depiction of NYC.  A much more engaging work is Irving Boyer's Prospect Park that shows servicemen relaxing at a Brooklyn subway station. 

The exhibit continues through May 27, 2013.