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Show Some types of exhibit may prove difficult to acquire; New York's Krowth, for example, has been so swift and so destructive as to leave few of the old shop fronts, old slRns and utensils, pieces of furniture furni-ture and paneling which are Important Impor-tant items In the London collection. But the beginning Is such a fine one, offering so many possibilities, that money and support for expansion must surely be forthcoming. One hopes that good slices of It will be spent on further work from Mr. Franklin and Mr. Burns. New York Herald Tribune. NEW YORK HISTORY FROM EARLY DAYS Museum Groups Vividly Recall the Past. Among the tattered letters, odd maps and prints, time-durkened portraits por-traits nnd other fragmentary memorabilia mem-orabilia which line the walls of the Dew Museum of the City of New York there runs the series of model groups In which Dwlght Franklin and Ned J. Burns have recaptured the long past of the greatest city of the world. They are delicate little lit-tle panoramas, beautifully constructed con-structed and finely modeled and breathing a sudden life and vitality Into the dead relics about them as they repeat the veritable scenes amid which those old letters passed or those quaint dresses were worn. Peter Stuyvesant's sword looks simply sim-ply like something In a museum until un-til near It one sees the governor himself, fully as vivid as life (If only about one-tenth as large), storming over Colonel Cartwrlght's demand for surrender while the Seventeenth century sunshine lies placidly upon the ramparts of Neuw Amsterdam fort outside the door. Well, the fort has lain burled for many years somewhere beneath the foundations of lower Broadway; Peter Stuyvesant Is as dead as a doornail, and so Is the pleasant, bucolic life of the little outpost of Dutch empire which once occupied what was once the tip of Manhattan. In the model those times are as alive as last night's supper club. So are the pleasant blue waters and wooded wood-ed slopes of the East river (so much pleasanter than today) as they are seen through the windows of the Beekman mansion, while General Howe, Interrupted with wineglass in hand and a mot upon his lips, tosses the Irritated glance of authority over his shoulder to see what the guards have brought In. It's an infernal in-fernal young rebel suspected of espionage es-pionage name of Nathan Hale. One almost hears the voices and one suddenly understands a lot about the American Revolution. Alive, too, are the waterfront crowds under the long jibbooms on South street, or the Indians, three centuries earlier, in their encampment encamp-ment at Inwood. These models are an essential and fascinating part of the new exhibit, something which distinguishes it from those of other museums. They give an incomparably incom-parably better idea of the times they portray than do, for example, the models of old London in the great London museum ; and they suggest how wonderful will be the record which this museum will contain con-tain when time has enriched its collections col-lections and broadened their scope to cover the countless fields of New York's life and activities down to the present time. As yet, of course, there are many lacunae. The contemporary con-temporary scene is hardly touched. |