AIHS Re-opened Landmark New York Headquarters

The occasion was marked with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Beaux-Arts Society home at 991 Fifth Avenue, across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Speakers included AIHS President-General Dr. Kevin Cahill, AIHS Chairman Donald Keough, Author Mary Higgins Clark, Actor Ciaran Hinds, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Irish Minister of Education Mary Hanafin.

The grand re-opening of the AIHS follows a two-year period of renovation during which the Society's landmark Beaux-Arts building was emptied of its contents and thoroughly restored.

Historical preservation of the building was undertaken in concert with the moderni zation of the Society's infrastructure.

In the process of creating a state-of-the art cultural center within a Fifth Avenue townhouse, 35 tons of concrete was poured and finished, 4,300 feet of steam piping, 1,350 feet of copper water piping, 500 feet of cast iron piping, 1,200 feet of in-wall electrical conduit and 1,500 feet of BX cable were installed.

Morrison Heckscher, Chairman of the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has described the AIHS building renovation as "a model of how to treat an architectural landmark in the 21st Century."

The American Irish Historical Society is an international center of scholarship, education and cultural enrichment that was founded in 1897 in order "that the world may know" the contribution to the United States of America made by Irish immigrants and their descendants.

The Society maintains an extensive collection of Irish and American Irish books, newspapers, archives and memorabilia in its landmark headquarters on Fifth Avenue's Museum Mile.

Its highly acclaimed literary journal, The Recorder, chronicles the surging creativity of Irish writers, artists and historians on both sides of the Atlantic.