The Museum of Modern Art, 1939

The idea for The Museum of Modern Art was developed in 1929 primarily by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (wife of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.) and two of her friends, Lillie P. Bliss andMary Quinn Sullivan.^[6] They became known variously as "the Ladies", "the daring ladies"and "the adamantine ladies". They rented modest quarters for the new museum in the Heckscher Building at 730 Fifth Avenue (corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street) in Manhattan, and it opened to the public on November 7, 1929, nine days after the Wall Street Crash. Abby had invited A. Conger Goodyear, the former president of the board of trustees of the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, to become president of the new museum. Abby became treasurer. At the time, it was America's premier museum devoted exclusively to modern art, and the first of its kind in Manhattan to exhibit European modernism.^[7]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Modern_Art

MoMA The Museum of Modern Art

November 15: Celebrate MoMA's 85th birthday with an after-hours toast and tour. http://bit.ly/1zyL7YM

[The Museum of Modern Art, 1939. Digital Image: Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art]