Sometimes you can’t tell when you’re stepping onto a battlefield. Last week a sign at the empty lobby desk of the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum, where the posted admission fee is $10, read “Please ring bell for assistance.” Beyond it, the galleries were dark. The elevator wasn’t working, the roof was leaking, and a sign had been taped over a fresh black wound in a wall: “Mold, do not touch.” The museum is understaffed, and although there’s a lot of deeply felt work on the walls, its programming is mostly MIA. At press time, its board was preparing to rent part of the building to a private business, which has plans to turn it into a party space. The lease includes an option to buy the entire building, donated to the museum by the city a decade ago. Rent would be credited toward the purchase price, and the purchase option could be exercised after the Near South TIF expires, when the city’s $1.7 million investment would no longer have to be paid back. What a deal! Community organizations are up in arms.
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The NVVAM has been struggling since fortune, in the person of Mayor Daley, smiled upon it. The museum grew from a 1981 exhibit by veterans, but it didn’t have a permanent home until the city gave it one in 1996: an abandoned Swiss Foods factory at 18th and Indiana, between two pristine historic residences, Clarke House and Glessner House. The city threw in a $1 million grant and a $400,000 loan to get the place going. But by 1999, after the museum’s three key founders had a falling-out, half the artists were taking legal action to get their work back. Those founders are no longer active, but the question they debated–how broad the museum’s focus should be–remains. Burdened by maintenance costs, operated by volunteers and just one full-time employee, and unable to consistently attract the public, the NVVAM has sunk ever deeper in debt.
In an apparent effort to facilitate the deal, the museum has tried to get rid of its sole tenant, Cafe Society, a restaurant flanking the lobby. Owner Jorge Armando Afanador has been there since 2001, has eight more years on his lease, and pays $1,910 per month. He doesn’t want to leave. He says the board gave him an eviction notice in December for being late with the rent even though he’s always paid on time and they owe him about $5,000 for janitorial work. After he hired an attorney, he says, “they offered us $12,000 to leave immediately.” He claims his business is worth $175,000. Bottom line, he says, is that “when the Black Orchid went to see my space, they loved it, so they want me out. Now [the board is] treating me like a king, because they finally see that this Latino without sombrero has the capability of getting a good lawyer, has the understanding of an elephant, and will not take shit from anybody.”
