Sports Museum Hopes to Open in Financial District

 by Ronald Drenger

Long before any cultural venue opens at the World Trade Center site, the planners of a $48 million museum devoted to sports say they will already be Downtown, drawing visitors in a big way.

This month, organizers of the National Sports Museum expect to pick a site in the Financial District for the project, which will occupy a ground-floor space and two additional floors. As of late last month, they were evaluating 40 Wall Street, 26 Broadway and another site they would not reveal.
A computer rendering of part of the proposed National Sports Museum.

They plan to open the museum in the summer of 2005.

The 70,000-square-foot museum will feature sports ranging from baseball and swimming to lacrosse and car racing, with memorabilia, exhibits on great athletes and teams, displays on the role of sports in American communities, and a 360-degree video screen.

“It’s the first time that all these sports will be celebrated together in one place,” said Philip Schwalb, the museum’s founder and CEO.

According to Schwalb, the for-profit museum will be filled with high-tech, interactive displays, such as a simulator to let visitors feel what it’s like to catch a Nolan Ryan fastball and “performance stations” where people can test their ability to kick a football, throw a pitch or drive a golf ball.


Sport-specific rooms will be built to recreate the feeling of being in the center of the action of a boxing ring, a hockey rink or pit row at a car race—down to distinct scents, such as chlorine for the swimming area or popcorn or cut grass for the baseball room.

More than 30 halls of fame and sports museums around the country are supporting the project—they will loan items from their collections and will be promoted in the new museum —though the baseball and football halls are not among them so far.

Schwalb said that private investors are covering some of the project’s $48 million cost, but he hopes to get most of it from public funds, including about $30 million in financing from Liberty Bonds, created by the Federal government after Sept. 11 to help revitalize Downtown, and funding from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

The project has won support from the Mayor’s office and from the Alliance for Downtown New York, Lower Manhattan’s business improvement district.

“The potential of this new venue to attract a diverse group of domestic and international tourists to Lower Manhattan is huge,” said Carl Weisbrod, the Alliance’s president.

“This is the kind of project,” said Schwalb, “that is really going to help infuse Downtown with excitement.”