National Museum of the American Indian, George Gustav Heye Center

The Museum

Opened in October 1994, the George Gustav Heye Center of the National Museum of the American Indian, at the historic Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in lower Manhattan, serves as the National Museum of the American Indian's exhibition and education facility in New York City. Permanent and temporary exhibitions, as well as a range of public programs—including music and dance performances, films and symposia—explore the diversity of the Native people of the Americas and the strength and continuity of their cultures from the earliest times to the present.

The Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House

Quechua Child's Costume
Photo by Ernest Amoroso

Home of NMAI's George Gustav Heye Center, the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House is one of the most splendid Beaux Arts buildings in New York. Rich in architectural and historic significance, the Custom House is a National Historic Landmark, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Interior Grandeur

Shells, marine creatures and sea signs abound throughout the interior, as befits a tribute to New York's preeminence as a seaport. Monumental arches and columns highlight the symmetry of the great hall. Off this spectacular lobby is the ornate Collector's Reception Room, its walls oak-paneled by the Tiffany Studios. The immense arch of the Custom House's magnificent elliptical rotunda was built according to the principles of Spanish-immigrant engineer Rafael Guastavino (1842-1908). The ingenious design allowed the rotunda's 140-ton skylight to be constructed without visible signs of support. In 1937, celebrated New York painter Reginald Marsh (1898-1954) accepted a low-paying position with the Treasury Department to produce murals for the rotunda dome. Working with astonishing speed, Marsh and eight young assistants depicted early explorers of the Americas in one series of paintings and traced the course of a ship entering New York's harbor in the other.

A Monument to Commerce

The customhouse Gilbert built, in collaboration with other renowned artists and craftsmen, was begun in 1900 and completed in 1907. The vast seven-story structure, with its 450,000 square feet, covers three blocks in lower Manhattan, immediately south of Bowling Green at the foot of Broadway. The exterior features 44 columns, each decorated with a head of Mercury, the Roman god of commerce. On the building's huge entrance pedestals are four large sculptures—seated female figures representing America, Asia, Europe, and Africa—by Daniel Chester French (1850-1931), who also created the statue of Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Above the columns of the main facade are 12 heroic statues representing the sea powers of Europe and the Mediterranean, while above the main-floor windows are sculpted heads symbolizing the races of humanity. The exterior also features a giant cartouche depicting the shield of the United States, with a serene head of Columbia, sculpted by Vincenzo Alfano in 1903, presiding over the building's main entrance.

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