Back in 2015, the Frick Collection faced a torrent of criticism over an expansion plan that would have built a six-story addition over a beloved gated garden on East 70th Street. In response, the museum went back to the drawing board and three years later came back with a $160 million plan that kept the garden intact and represented a compromise that most preservationists indicated they could live with. More importantly, it won approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
But preservation battles in New York City die hard. While the garden was saved in the latest plan, the museum's historic music room was not, a fact that has continued to sadden and outrage some preservationists and concert-goers. The 1914 building was originally designed and built as a mansion for industrialist Henry Clay Frick, who was a patron of the visual arts—hence, the Frick art collection—but also of classical music.
For more than eight decades, the Frick’s music room, a small oval-shaped room that seats about 147 people, has been a venue for concerts. According to the Frick's own website, "Many of the century's greatest artists have performed in the Music Room, including New York debuts of nationally and internationally acclaimed musicians."
Later this month, a band of preservationists and music lovers will mount another effort to save the room as the Frick undergoes what is expected to be the final hurdle to its expansion: a review by the Board of Standards and Appeals for a zoning variance. To date, an online petition circulated by one of the preservationists has amassed nearly 6,000 signatures.
Among the group's argument before the city is that Frick failed to take into account what the loss of the music room would mean in terms of cultural and historic resources.
"Salon spaces provided a venue for particular types of music, chamber and small choral presentations. This was how music was developed throughout the country," said Michael Hiller, a lawyer who is representing the group Stop Irresponsible Frick Development. "It provides a lens through which we can see our historical past."
In 2018, Anthony Tommasini, the New York Times chief classical music critic, wrote of the Frick music room, "It truly is the closest thing to a 19th-century music salon this city has to offer."
He added: "In the Frick’s room, the sound of that same string quartet becomes even more visceral and engulfing, and individual voices come through with palpable clarity. You can hear — and see! — the players tossing phrases back and forth between instruments."
In 2018, the preservationist and architect Theodore Grunewald petitioned the city to landmark the music room, which was designed by John Russell Pope, as well as the two other spaces inside the Frick, the West Gallery and Enamel Room and the Reception Hall. But Landmarks officials denied the request, saying that it does not generally consider "non-contiguous, disconnected rooms" and in the vast majority of cases has only designated interior landmarking to "large circulation spaces."
Among other criticisms, Grunewald, who is spearheading his own effort apart from Stop Irresponsible Frick Development, said the expansion plan is cramming too many uses under one building.
"The problem is that if you try to shove too many program requirements," he said, "the existing footprint, like Cinderella's glass slipper, can break."
But he also said that those fighting to save the music room are not against the Frick's long-desired expansion. He and others have urged the museum to consider other alternatives, such as buying up nearby townhouses, including the former mansion owned by the late sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein believed to be valued from $50 million to $60 million.
The museum, which declined to provide a public comment, has over the years reiterated its need to redesign and enlarge its building to house its growing collection of art. Since 1935, the number of works it owns has grown from 635 to 1,385. Although the music room was used for concerts, the venue is mostly used for lectures and symposiums. Under the new plan, the Frick will turn the music room into an exhibition space and construct a new 220-seat auditorium that can accommodate both music and other types of events.
Following the Frick's decision to retain the garden, the city's major preservation groups offered their support of the expansion plan.
"Many New Yorkers treasure this museum," said the City Club of New York, an urban policy group that often speaks out on preservation issues. "We recognize it as a jewel, and are very wary of any change that might compromise the visitor experience. The proposed design promises to enhance the current functions of the Frick and does not seek to introduce new programmatic elements."
The Landmarks Conservancy of New York, a nonprofit preservation advocacy group, praised the project as being "appropriate for this landmark and meets the institution’s goals." It added: "There will be no loss of historic fabric, and while some façade elements of the Library Building will be less visible, they will not be removed or altered by this project."
Despite Tomassini's view, not everyone in the city's music community agrees with the preservationists. For decades, WNYC, which along with Gothamist is owned by New York Public Radio, used to broadcast from the Frick music room. In the 1990s, John Schaefer, a longtime host and former music director of the station, started a nationally distributed series called Chamber Music New York that would feature concerts at the Frick music room.
"That music fit hand in glove with the room," Schaefer said. He said that during intermissions someone from the Frick would come and talk about one of the museum's works of art.
"I loved the music. I loved the space," he said. But he added that he also had mixed feelings about the venue. Tickets to the concert series were always difficult to obtain. "There was a certain kind of call back to a time when this kind of music was to the exclusion of many, many people," he said.
"The music room is a lovely room but I think there's a larger picture here," he added, explaining that many New Yorkers don't know about the Frick Collection and its extensive art collection.
"It's about access. That is what it comes down to," Schaefer said.
But for opponents, the loss of the music room means New Yorkers will no longer be able to experience a type of classical music, such as pre-Baroque, as it was meant to be. Jennifer McBride, one of the members of the preservationist group and an Upper East Side resident who grew up going to concerts in the music room, called the space "integral" to the Frick. On Sunday, she took her daughter, a young aspiring cello player, to a performance there.
"She came home saying it was amazing," she said. "That’s what you get from being in an intimate venue."
UPDATE: A previous version of this story misattributed a statement in support of the Frick's expansion to the Landmarks Conservancy. It was instead from the City Club. A statement from Landmarks Conservancy has been added as well.
