NEW YORK CITY.- Robert R. Macdonald announced his resignation as Director of the Museum of the City of New York, where he has served as the CEO since 1985. In his letter to the Museum's Trustees Macdonald said, "Recent events have brought the Museum of the City of New York to a new chapter in its 79-year history. These new circumstances require new direction. My seventeen years at the Museum have been professionally and personally rewarding. I am proud of the fact that the Museum has achieved many of the goals I had hoped for when I arrived in 1985. My only regret is that my vision for a new, world-class museum about this magnificent city at the Tweed Courthouse has been thwarted. As a historian, I am a firm believer in the power of ideas and I trust that the concept of the Museum of the City of New York at the Tweed is an idea that will one day become a reality." Macdonald's resignation will take effect on August 31, 2002.



Newton P.S. Merrill responding on behalf of the Museum's Board of Trustees said, "Bob's seventeen year tenure as director brought the Museum of the City of New York to a new level of accomplishment and recognition locally, nationally, and internationally. Of particular note was his four-year effort to relocate the Museum to the Tweed Courthouse as a new world-class center of learning and quality cultural attraction. On behalf of the Trustees I want to thank Bob for applying his professional excellence to the service of the people of New York City."



In his letter to the Trustees Macdonald did not announce his future plans. On Saturday he is leaving for a two week lecture tour to Damascus, Syria and New Delhi, India where the Museum's exhibition "After September 11: Images from Ground Zero" of photographs by Joel Meyerowitz is opening as part of a worldwide tour. Macdonald organized this first exhibition about Ground Zero to tour internationally for the United States Department of State. The exhibition will be presented in major world capitals over the next three years.



During Macdonald's tenure the Museum of the City of New York presented 136 special exhibitions ranging from "Berenice Abbott: Changing New York", which also toured internationally, to the current acclaimed exhibition "A Community of Many Worlds: Arab Americans in New York City." The Museum published 24 books and exhibition catalogues including the 1987 On Being Homeless: the History of Homelessness in New York City," to the most recent, Hirschfeld's New York. Macdonald also created New York City History Day, which, now in its 13th year, has become the largest urban history fair in the world.



Louis S. Auchincloss, the noted author and for 23 years chair of the Museum Board, who hired Macdonald in 1985 said, "The Museum is losing an accomplished leader who has done important things for the Museum and its audiences. His tireless efforts to advance the Museum's mission are his legacy to this institution."



Edward H. Able, President of the American Association of Museums, where Macdonald chaired the Board from 1985 to 1988 said, "Bob Macdonald is a nationally recognized leader of the museum community and an example of the best in the museum profession. His considerable skills and expertise are matched only by his professional integrity. We look forward to his continued service to the American museum community."



Peg Breen, President of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, and a Museum Trustee said, "Macdonald's vision for the Tweed Courthouse as a new museum about our great city will serve as a model of the museum the people of New York deserve, and will one day have. I only regret that Bob will not be the one to transform his vision into reality."