After years of renovation and crisis, Atwater Kent museum will reopen two galleries

After more than three years of darkness, two front galleries and a reception area will open to the public Wednesday at the Philadelphia History Museum at the Atwater Kent.

That may not sound like much, but for the beleaguered museum, closed for long renovations marred by financial and planning miscues, it is a welcome sign of life.

"The whole point, in my mind, is just to get back on the radar," said museum head Charles Croce. "Have people drop by and at least get a taste. This institution has been closed for three years now, so this is a taste. This is an appetizer. This is a preview."

The rest of the revamped three-story building, the original home of the Franklin Institute at 15 S. Seventh St., should open by late June, Croce said.

In January 2009, the museum - then known as the Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia - closed to begin a nearly $6 million overhaul of its interior, systems, and exhibition spaces. Officials said the building would reopen in the fall of 2010.

That schedule proved impossible to meet. Funds were scarce amid the nationwide fiscal crisis, installation planning was placed on the back burner, and construction moved slowly.

A series of sales of art and objects from the museum's collection - most recently Charles Willson Peale's portrait Yarrow Mamout (1819), sold to the Philadelphia Museum of Art last year - stirred considerable public concern.

The proceeds of the Mamout sale, estimated at more than $1.5 million, were used to defray the museum's debt and open the way to completion of renovations.

Croce has said that the art and artifact sales for funding renovation and repaying debt have ended and that the galleries opening Wednesday are a foreshadowing of the museum to come.

Trustee David Rasner, on the board for almost 20 years, said he was confident the museum would raise all additional funds needed for a complete opening this summer.

"But I do worry about sustainability . . . and continuity," Rasner said. "That means maintaining quality programming, maintaining quality exhibitions, maintaining quality staff, and raising the funds to make that happen. The museum has never been funded adequately. It's been on a shoestring."

One problem has been the museum's complex relationship with the city. The building was acquired by radio pioneer Atwater Kent, who then donated it to Philadelphia. Since the early 1940s, the museum has largely operated as a city agency; it is the official repository of Philadelphia's material culture, with a collection of about 110,000 artifacts and artworks.

Gary Steuer, the city's chief cultural officer, is trying to sort out the city-museum relationship and has become a member of the museum board.

"The city has tried to stay on top of the financial situation to ensure they are able to build a healthy, thriving institution," Steuer said, acknowledging that the museum is "in a challenged situation now."

That is a key reason Croce wants to get the doors open - if only a crack - and engineer a complete opening in a few months.

One of the new galleries will be what he calls the "Community Gallery" - various neighborhoods around the city will mount exhibitions related to their particular histories and experiences.

The first of these, a history of the Mural Arts Program, is not yet installed. The gallery is initially functioning as a kind of preview room, displaying what the fully open museum will look like.

That said, some artifacts - a pair of Joe Frazier's red-leather boxing gloves in a case right next to George Washington's silver pocket watch - hint at the iconic depth of the museum's holdings.

The other gallery - dubbed "City Stories" - is intended to give visitors a glimpse of the breadth of material that eventually will be on view throughout the building. It also hints at the completely reworked approach the museum will take.

Forget long labels, bad lighting, and deathly silence. The museum has embraced a level of multimedia display - city residents telling their stories on video, for instance - and viewer engagement not present at the old Atwater Kent.

The City Stories gallery contains videos, a wealth of artifacts - from slave shackles to Atwater Kent radios, Rembrant Peale's portrait of Martha Washington, and James Stidun's mid-19th century portrait of Stephen Smith, a formerly enslaved abolitionist.

"There's a very different tone, look, and feel from the old Atwater Kent," Croce said. "It's multimedia, it's layered, it speaks to a lot of different Philadelphia audiences."

Rasner added that the open galleries will give the museum reality and a public face - things it has not had for more than three years.

"Once those galleries and the others are open," he said, "people will have a vision, a reality, something to see and get excited about."

The museum needs to raise about $600,000 to complete the installation process. Can it be done? Can the museum meet its often-revised schedule?

"Yes," Croce said. "I feel we've turned the corner."

To see a video of the museum, go to www.philly.com/phillypastEndText