Huntington Hartford's Gallery of Modern Art opened to the public at 2 Columbus Circle in New York, a white-marble, Edward Durell Stone building that immediately became one of Manhattan's most debated museum structures. The opening drew 3,358 visitors on its first day and presented Hartford's collection in a purpose-built private museum with multiple gallery floors, restoration space, a restaurant, and performing-arts amenities. Its program mixed older modernism, contemporary display, and media ambitions, including later film and television spaces. Critics questioned both Hartford's taste and the building's mannered modernism, but the site became a durable case study in patronage, museum branding, architectural preservation, and adaptive reuse after its later transformations into the New York Cultural Center and, eventually, the Museum of Arts and Design.
The opening made 2 Columbus Circle a long-running flashpoint in debates over private museums, modernist architecture, and preservation.
