Exterior of the Staten Island Museum location on the grounds of Snug Harbor. (Advance/SILive.com|Jan Somma-Hammel) Staff-Shot
Staten Island nonprofit sees over $500K in federal grants restored, but arts funding still threatened
By Paul Liotta | [email protected]
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A Staten Island non-profit organization learned Wednesday that it would have more than $500,000 in federal grants restored, but arts and culture funding around Staten Island remains threatened.
However, the $565,194 restored to the Staten Island Museum in Livingston may again be rescinded as President Donald Trump’s administration appeals a federal judge’s injunction against the cuts from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
“I will take the good news where I can get it,” Staten Island Museum President and CEO Janice Monger wrote in a Thursday email. “Yet the uncertainty and disruption remain.”
Monger and the museum learned of the cuts in a pair of April emails notifying them that they would no longer receive the congressionally-appropriated funds from two programmatic grants.
On April 8, the museum learned it would no longer receive funds from a 3-year $317,137 grant used to help digitize its founders’ papers, and later received a notice April 28 that a $248,057 3-year grant for a program inventorying Staten Island Native American artifacts would be discontinued.
The restoration of those grants resulted from a lawsuit brought by 21 states, including New York, against the Trump administration for its actions against the work of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Minority Business Development Agency, and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.
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