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Sag Harbor Express / Editorials / 2151232

Museum Deserves Support

Editorial Board on Apr 18, 2023

Sag Harbor has long prided itself on its commitment to maintaining its historic character, which has helped the village hold on to its small-town feel despite intense development pressure.

While preserving architectural aesthetics has been an important tool, preserving and celebrating the village’s history is just as important and cannot be lost. It’s a cause the Sag Harbor Historical Society — now the Sag Harbor Historical Museum — has championed for years, alongside the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum.

On May 16, Sag Harbor School District voters will turn out for a budget vote and School Board election that has largely divided the greater Sag Harbor community, primarily over whether the district should spend $9.42 million to purchase land on Marsden Street for new school facilities, most likely an athletic field.

But another proposition on the ballot should not give any resident pause: approving the allocation of $75,000 for the Sag Harbor Historical Museum to use for the maintenance and improvement of the Annie Cooper Boyd House and other facilities used by the museum.

The dedicated members of the Historical Society operate with a shoestring budget — less than $90,000 annually. The funding will enable the museum to properly take care of the Annie Cooper Boyd House and hire more professional staff to help develop exhibitions and conduct research.

This spring, the museum will unveil a new exhibit showcasing a series of Cooper Boyd’s paintings of significant buildings in Sag Harbor. The museum also is currently working on an update to one of the village’s most important documents‚ “Sag Harbor: Past, Present and Future,” a book that details the village’s historic buildings and often is used to prevent the destruction of those structures and those around them.

In Sag Harbor, we often come together as a community and agree to disagree when necessary. Supporting this important organization is something we should all agree on.

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