National Museum of the American Indian

On the cusp of Bowling Green in the financial district looms the National Museum of the American Indian, an imposing Beaux Arts backdrop behind many tourist photos of the Wall Street bull. Designed by renowned architect Cass Gilbert, the building was originally completed in 1907 as the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House and operated under this guise until 1974. I was disappointed to learn this wasn't the same Custom House where Herman Melville battled corruption and Chester A. Arthur basked in it. (Prior to 1907 the Custom House was located in the Merchants Exchange at 55 Wall Street, though Melville apparently worked out of another office on Gansevoort Street.)

Security is airport-grade, due to the museum's status as a federal building. After clearing the metal detector without incident, I caught the tail of a guided tour on Native American clothing piloted by a member of the Hupa tribe. On display in the Infinity of Nations exhibit were a Hupa dance skirt outfitted with beads and thimbles, a Lakota war shirt possibly belonging to Crazy Horse, an Inuit parka made from caribou hide, and a disconcertingly out-of-place Victorian wedding dress worn by an advocate for Ponca tribal rights named Susette LaFlesche Tibbles, who went under the nickname Bright Eyes.

A second tour focused on the architecture of the building itself and granted me access to the locked chamber of the splendorous Collector's Office, these days often used as a movie location. An events planner had commandeered the stately Rotunda, but our group was able to slip along the perimeter to admire Reginald Marsh's series of seafaring murals and the marble columns of solid Vermont marble which flank each end.

On display in the contemporary gallery was an exhibit for the Ojibwe mixed-media artist and sculptor Carl Beam, in which ravens, stencils, and cultural iconography meet at the crossroads of the spiritual and political. Photography was forbidden in this gallery but examples of his work are available online.

I should mention admission to the museum is free, always a welcoming figure.


The National Museum of the American Indian.


Formerly the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House (1907-1974).




The Custom House was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976.


Entrance to the Infinity of Nations exhibit.


Tlingit spruce-root hat, ca 1900.


Nisga'a mask, British Columbia ca 1875.


Kwakwaka'wakw mechanical mask, ca 1900.


Nisga'a mechanical mask, ca 1870.


Alaskan Inupiaq parka, ca 1900.


This Lakota war shirt, decorated with human and horse hair, allegedly belonged to Crazy Horse.


Lakota square hand drum.


Aymara powder horn, ca 1910.


Kuna Kantule hat, ca 1924.




From a gallery of photographs of the Isleta Pueblo titled "Time Exposures."


The central Rotunda. The dome is, unsettlingly, made from concrete.


During World War II this skylight was tarred over, as was standard practice in event of an air raid.


Muralist Reginald Marsh deliberately obfuscated the name of this ship, the S.S. Normandie, after Joseph Kennedy protested the lack of America-centricity.


One of several solid Vermont marble columns.


Inside the Collector's Office.




Inaccessible to casual visitors, the Collector's Office is occasionally used as a movie set, most recently seen in Boardwalk Empire.






Glancing upwards from the base of the curved staircase.


A patriotic bald eagle newel.


"Future Clone" by Fritz Scholder, 1993.


Nautical ironwork ornaments the former Cashier's Office.


Pisces.