New Book Airs The Met Museum's Dirty Laundry
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A prolific New York writer's history on the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was recently celebrated in an Upper East Side book party, shows the seamy side of philanthropy. NY1's George Whipple filed the following report.Michael Gross, one of the United States' most respected writers, has worked for the New York Times and the New York Magazine. He has authored 10 books, including the bestsellers "Model," a history of the modeling industry, and "740 Park," a history of the Park Avenue building at 740. His latest work is the controversial "Rogues' Gallery," a secret history of the moguls and the money that made the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
"It's the story of the people who built the Met and the people who sustained the museum and the people who keep it going and give it the art and their intricate and bizarre lives," says Gross. "And how rich people create new images for themselves through philanthropy."
Not everyone was please on having rich family secrets put out in the open.
"A law firm has been stalking New York like a black panther, threatening people that they shouldn't write about it because it's 'filled with misinformation,' which flies in the face of everyone that who knows about the Metropolitan, who reads it and who doesn't have a vested interest in what it says," says Gross.
He found that money and art have often been cleansed through the Metropolitan.
"Art is one of the great ways of laundering money, laundering social reputations, laundering a family and there are some people who understand that process and who aren't ashamed of it," says Gross. "Proximity to art breeds psychosis in some people. Art is is a way alchemy, because it takes dirt and turns it into diamonds. That's what the Metropolitan does. That you can put bad motivations in one end and out comes eternal truth and that's a wonderful thing."
Barry Kieselstein-Cord hosted a book party for Gross at his store on the Upper East Side.
"Michael is one of the great New York people. When you have a hometown writer who is smart and intelligent and dedicated as he, how could you not?" says Kieselstein-Cord.
I've known Michael Gross since the 1980s, when we both worked together under Kerry Donovan at The New York Times, and our friendship has stayed fast and true to this day.