Steven Conn of Ohio State reviews the President's House exhibit in the April issue of
The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (excerpt:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5215/...bio.135.2.0191).
He argues that the project's troubled history began with the National Park Service's overreaction to 9/11 and the mistrust created by it: trying to turn Independence Mall into a minimum-security prison, closing Chestnut Street in front of Independence Hall, proposing a tunnel linking the Liberty Bell to Independence Hall, planning to turn Independence Square and the first block of the Mall into a permanent 8-acre gated compound.
He validates the criticisms of New York Times critic Edward Rothstein (
http://www.ushistory.org/presidentsh.../nyt121410.htm and
http://www.ushistory.org/presidentsh.../nyt122810.htm) and Philadelphia Inquirer critic Inga Saffron (
http://www.ushistory.org/presidentsh.../inq121710.htm), but also argues that the project's mission was always confused: Is it a museum, meant to be a teaching tool? Is it a memorial, meant to be an theraputic experience? Could any monument satisfyingly convey 10 years of presidential history AND tell the history of slavery in America?
RE: the physical design, he notes that visitors are not watching the video screens or reading the text panels, and argues that the glass vitrine enclosing the archaeological fragments is the only part of the design that truly works. He finds it vastly more moving than the actual memorial: the glass-box-enclosed slave quarters at the front door to the Liberty Bell Center.
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