New York s cultural institutions have also suffered. The neglect is hard to spot at first. There are blockbuster shows in the museums, the art world is booming and well-publicized fund raisers have been held for institutions like the Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum. Yet there is a pervasive sleaze to much of the fund raising and a shocking superficiality in the way the money is used. The vital branch system of the Public Library, the system on which most library users depend, operates at reduced hours starved for funds while craftsmen restore murals in the main building at 42nd and 5th.
Corporate logos loom ever larger on the city s cultural events.
Arts funding has become crude corporate public relations. The new trend is perhaps best seen in the South Street Seaport development. In theory, this complex of shops and arcades was built to support a museum that would preserve the memory of downtown New York s role as a seaport. Both physically and economically, the development has overshadowed the museum. Exhibits are scattered, almost invisible, among the Italian ice cream parlors and the fern bars .