The Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) is headquartered at the Getty Center but also has facilities at the Getty Villa, and commenced operation in 1985. The GCI is a private international research institution dedicated to advancing conservation practice through the creation and delivery of knowledge. It "serves the conservation community through scientific research, education and training, model field projects, and the dissemination of the results of both its own work and the work of others in the field" and "adheres to the principles that guide the work of the Getty Trust: service, philanthropy, teaching, and access". GCI has activities in both art conservation and architectural conservation. GCI scientists study the deterioration of objects and buildings, and how to prevent or stop such deterioration. GCI has also been involved with long-term education programs, such as establishing a Master's degree program in Archaeological and Ethnographic Conservation in collaboration with the University of California, Los Angeles.
From 1983 to June 1999, the Trust ran the Getty Information Institute (GII) which sought to collect electronic information to serve cultural heritage institution and researchers. Together with the American Council of Learned Societies GII sought to build a broad coalition of non-profits to establish a National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage. Upon the dissolution of the GII, its data bases were transferred to the Getty Research Institute.
The Getty Trust Indenture dated December 2, 1953 made a California charitable trust for "the diffusion of artistic and general knowledge." The trust is governed by a 13-member board of trustees. Trustees are elected to serve four-year terms, with a maximum limit of three terms. The board is self-perpetuating with the board electing or re-electing the trustees. The board holds an annual meeting in May or June of each year. Although the board conducts most of its work through committees, a number of important decisions are reserved for the entire board including approval of any art acquisition costing more than $1 million.
On October 2, 2006, the California Attorney General issued a report following an investigation of the trust and its operations. At the close of the investigation an independent monitor was hired to assure proper governance and expenditures of the trust. On May 7, 2008, the Attorney General closed the monitoring process.
The trust was hurt by the economic downturn following 2007 and has reduced its annual budget by 14%. In 2007, the trust had $6.4 billion in endowment, but this amount dropped to $4.5 billion in 2009. In 2009, the trust had $300 million in expenses down from $349 million in 2008. For example, GRI co-produced the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals with the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, but transferred that activity to Columbia University on July 1, 2009.
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Georgetown is a neighborhood in Washington, D.C., along the Potomac River. Georgetown started as a separate city in 1751 before the area became the District of Columbia. Georgetown stayed a separate city until 1871, when the United States Congress took away its charter. Another law in 1895 canceled Georgetown's laws and renamed the streets to match those in the city of Washington. Today, stores, bars and restaurants in Georgetown are on M Street and Wisconsin Avenue. Georgetown has the main campus of Georgetown University. The embassies of France, Mongolia, Sweden, Thailand, and Ukraine are in Georgetown.
Georgetown has many historic landmarks including:
Brentwood (Washington, D.C.)
Brentwood is a neighborhood in Northeast Washington, D.C.. It is named after the Brentwood Mansion built at Florida Avenue and 6th Street NE in 1817 by Robert Brent, the first mayor of Washington City. He built it as a wedding present for his daughter Eleanor and Congressman Joseph Pearson. Brent gave them both the mansion and a large farm surrounding it. Congressman Pearson also purchased additional properties and expanded the estate further. The property then known as Brentwood was larger than the present (2007) neighborhood known as Brentwood. Images of the mansion may be found in the book "Capital Losses: A Cultural History of Washington's Destroyed Buildings" by James W. Goode, and in several books in the collection of the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. Edward Sisson, a descendant of the family that owned the mansion throughout its existence, has posted a collection of paintings, drawings, photos, and histories of the mansion on-line. The Frick Art Reference Library (http://www.frick.org/) has drawings, paintings, and perhaps photographs (although none appear to be accessible on-line as of late 2007). On the web, a small drawing of the mansion, together with a brief description of its owners in 1873, Capt. & Mrs. Carlile Pollock Patterson, may be found in "Washington Outside and Inside" by George Alfred Townsend, at page 620, searchable as a "google book."
Many people think that Benjamin Latrobe (who designed the United States Capitol) designed Brentwood Mansion. However, at the time of the house's design, Latrobe was suffering family troubles and his records for this period are poor.
During the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877), Brentwood Mansion was a center of Washington social life, with many parties hosted by Elizabeth (Eliza) Worthington Patterson (daughter of Joseph Pearson and his third wife Catherine Worthington Pearson) and her husband Carlile Pollock Patterson. Patterson had known Grant since 1852; Patterson's brother-in-law David Dixon Porter, married to Patterson's sister George Ann, was the highest-ranking Admiral in the US Navy; and Patterson's brother Thomas H. Patterson was commander of the Washington Navy Yard (1873-1876) before becoming the Rear Admiral in command of the Asiatic Squadron (1877-1880). Patterson Street, N.E., which is adjacent to the property, was probably named for the Patterson family.
C.P. Patterson, a Naval officer and ship captain turned scientist and administrator of a government department, had neither the interest nor the aptitude to manage the transformation of a large rural farming and forest property into an urbanized part of the city growing around it. After C.P. Patterson's death in 1881, long-delayed financial problems came to a head, and on June 6, 1884, three years after Patterson's death, Congress enacted a private bill, House bill No. 4689, entitled "An act for the relief of Eliza W. Patterson," C.P. Patterson's widow, excusing accumulated District of Columbia property taxes on the Patterson land. President Chester A. Arthur neither signed nor vetoed the bill, but held it ten days and allowed it to become law without his signature. In a message dated June 21, 1884, the President explained "I do not question the constitutional right of Congress to pass a law relieving the family of an officer, in view of the services he had rendered his country, from the burdens of taxation, but I submit to Congress that this just gift of the nation to the family of such faithful officer should come from the National Treasury rather than from that of this District, and I therefore recommend that an appropriation be made to reimburse the District for the amount of taxes which would have been due to it had this act not become a law."