I'm sure many Detroiters were ill thinking about the sale of the DIA's art collection. I just couldn't listen to the news reports or read about it. I have been aware for years that the DIA's collection is highly envied by museums out west and to the south, new museums that will never be able to house great art in the numbers that we have [[the number of acknowledged masterpieces is rather finite and pretty much spoken for). This is the envy that the Los Angeles writer spoke out of when she said that Detroit should be forced to sell off the DIA's collection "so more people, in more prosperous cities could view them."
Today the NYT reports on another collection of Detroit's treasures that may be on the block:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/bu...ection.html?hp
I was not aware of this one:
DETROIT — As this debt-ridden city lurches toward a
possible bankruptcy filing, residents and workers have been locked in a grim
faceoff with creditors over how to preserve what remains of their services and
benefits.
Contributing to the municipal anxiety is the
possibility that some of the city’s cultural treasures could be sold off,
including masterpieces in the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Belle
Isle park in the Detroit River.
But there is another Detroit family jewel in question
that is largely unknown outside the automobile world and to some people even
more treasured — a collection of 62 lovingly maintained classic cars donated to
the city since the 1950s by civic-minded families seeking to preserve the Motor
in Motor City.
Most of the cars are stored under protective plastic
bubbles in a World War II-era riverfront warehouse on the grounds of Fort Wayne,
while others are on display at the Detroit Historical Museum or on loan to
exhibits around the country.
Just as art patrons are resisting selling van Goghs
and Matisses to satisfy Detroit’s debt, car lovers are pushing back at the
possibility of losing what they regard as the city’s historic industrial heart
and soul — including a Cadillac Osceola that dates to 1905, and a vintage Ford
Mustang worth an estimated $2 million.
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