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Aerospace museum will be temporarily housed in HSBC Arena: ?Flying Tigers' circle harbor to celebrate new home(Buffalo News, The (NY) (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Jul. 11--Three "Flying Tigers" from World War II circled Erie Canal Harbor on Thursday afternoon, heralding the announcement that the Ira G. Ross Aerospace Museum will be temporarily housed in HSBC Arena. The former Niagara Aerospace Museum is leasing exhibition space on the east side of the building along Seymour H. Knox III Plaza. Though the 10,000 square feet is just one-quarter of the display area the museum had in Niagara Falls, museum officials hope the move is a prelude to future relocation in the proposed Canal Side development across the street. "This gives us an opportunity to be active in the mission of preserving and displaying all of the things a museum tries to do," said Jacek A. Wysocki, the museum's director, as workers moved large text panels, artifacts and photographs into place. "At the same time, it gives us visibility, an opportunity to interface with the public and to try to generate support for a full-size museum." Some of the aerospace museum's collection -- including a replica of a 1911 Curtiss "Pusher," and one of the earliest surviving Bell helicopters, made in Buffalo -- are expected to be on display in early August, six months after the museum departed its Niagara Falls location. Maureen Hurley, an Erie Canal Harbor Development board member, called the move "a first step" for the museum's eventual relocation, but cautioned that planners were still far from knowing what a permanent plan for Canal Side will be. "What we wanted to do is give the aerospace museum an opportunity to show their stuff, and this certainly provides them with that," Hurley said. "The great part is they will be part of the attractions people have to see when they visit the harbor this summer." Dr. Elizabeth Olmsted-Ross, an early aviator who also did research into medical issues arising with flying, donated $1 million to the museum in 2007. The bequest required the museum to relocate to Buffalo and be renamed after her late husband. The Buffalo & Erie County Naval and Military Park also has aircraft on view in its new home on the harbor site. Wysocki said he believed the aerospace museum, with its focus on Western New York's contribution to flying, would complement that exhibit. He said there was no consideration of merging the displays. [email protected] To see more of The Buffalo News, N.Y., or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.buffalonews.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The Buffalo News, N.Y. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |