Newsday (Nassau Edition) from Hempstead, New York • 76

-f vk GCo Mtesening a monument to an age of grandeur Continued from Page 3 by Hoyt Ammidon the chairman of the board of the United Staten Trust Co of New York and has the likes of David Rockefeller and Whitney Ninth Seymour as members The group has worked closely with the Office of Lower Manhattan Development and has raised most of the $40000 that it will take for a feasibility study on what the customs house should be converted into and how to pay for that conversion The study has just begun under the directorship of James Parton former chairman of the Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Carp and founder of American Heritage got to become a vacuum cleaner to start with and pick up every idea I Parton said In order to be self-supporting the building will have to combine commercial and nonprofit activities And here are sortie of the ideas that are being tossed around asr possible combinations: A combination of a branch of the Near York Public Library and a computer center a downtown branch for Columbia adult education program offices stores film studios a downtown branch for the Metropolitan or the Museum of Modem Art an international visitors center A large part of the planning centers around the main attraction the rotunda which in the 1930a during WPA days was decorated by artist Reginald Marsh with some extraordinary frescoes They show the heroes of exploration in small niches in the ceiling and the docking and berthing of famous ships on larger overhead panels Here is the Ambrose lightship guiding a vessel in there a car is being unloaded there Greta Garbo holds a press conference on deck Marsh was paid $30 a week at first then was made a civil servant at 90 cents an hour Some tour guides point out that shipping companies that bought Marsh lunch would have their ships represented (Hi the panels At one point Joseph Kennedy then chairman of the US Maritime Commission decided it was unpatriotic to have so many foreign ships depicted so Marsh was directed to blur the name of the Normandie Very few people have heard of those frescoes and even fewer have seen them the dim light in the rotunda makes that extremely difficult now But they surfaced last year in huge color plates In the book on Marsh by art historian Lloyd Goodrich that Abrams publishers put out The other treasures in the customs house are even more hidden to the general public: the office with the intricately carved oak panel the fancy gilt ceiling the paintings of important porta in the 17th Century and the dolphin doorknobs what all the preservation groups are getting together to save The building has no air conditioning It has outmoded plumbing and other creaky mechanical systems And a 1967 study by the Public Buildings Service indicated that it would take about $8000000 to modernize Now educated guesses are that it would be more like $10000000 However with the business community behind it the building seems in little danger of being destroyed If you want to see it now before it changes however you can on Sunday Sept 30 at 2:30 PM when Classical America an association interested in showing Americans their elmriml past will conduct a tour of it and the Cunard Building Tours meet at 2:30 on the north side of the customs house on Bowling Green (where some say Manhattan was purchased for $24 and a handful of trinkets) Admission is $1 II Above The graceful spiral staircase under the customs house dome forms the focus of the massive rotunda Far left In the Reginald Marsh painted frescoes in his witty realistic style This panel depict a shipboard press interview with film star Greta Garbo with doves being discreetly released Left The doorknob and escutcheon are cast bronze with the fanciful dolphin doorknob carrying out the seagoing motif of the building Right The Great Hall is lighted by giant hanging copies of Venetian lanterns a favorite of neoclassical architects and designers i Fhsfei by Stun Wmlismn Port 1116 NEWSDAY SUNDAY SEPTEMIEK It 173 1 II iimii Tir 1.