Palace of the Governors; 3; Interviews with Thomas E. Chávez and Frank V. Ortiz, Jr.

It just, over 30,000 glass plate images, an amazing collection. You were saying, whoops, you know, you're not reading? That's important, yeah. And I'm back for one again. And so the final piece to the puzzle, I mean there's one more piece and that's the endowment. The state can't afford to pay for all the staff and all the programs that this new thing will do. And so the friends and the staff started an endowment account. Basically, we gave up some program money now to start investing in the future. And now that we have the Annex, we have certain goals that we need to make. We want to get to $4 million in the next three years. So with that money kicks in to help install the new building, we've already raised in pledges and money received $1,250,000. And now with the signing of the legislation, and we'll let Frank address this, I think the endowment's really going to take off and we always planned it that way.

I think that's one of the important features of having the funds to begin what everybody knows to be the final solution to this aggravating problem. Your viewers are seeing the current storage conditions for our great collections, not only of paintings, but of fragile fabrics and so on. We now are able to say that we will be receiving major, major collections from people who want to share their accomplishments in the artistic and whatever collection field, with a nation as a whole. No one would contribute anything to have it put where the storage is backing up and wires are about to blow up or whatever. So we now can assure your viewers that major collections, major forms of endowment, major opportunities to, in effect, increase the impact of this museum in the nation are now

possible and that's very encouraging. Can you give us a little preview of some of the private collections that will be entering the museum? Yeah, we want to talk about it if we don't have a lot of them. No, we're going to become, it's safe to say that we're going to become a center in this part of the country and Missile American pre-Columbian art. We're going to become a center in this part of the country of Spanish colonial art, art from Mexico and Peru and Guatemala and Spain and furniture and all that creates a context for what New Mexico is today because that's part of our tradition. We're going to receive a big collection in both categories and some in the Spanish colonial art category. We're going to receive collections from three different individuals that are going to come to us.

As you've already seen, we mentioned, we showed you some of that that's already here, we just put in like the big, our lady of the pulses of the joys was just given to us in anticipation for this and so that'll happen. There are other things that are new Mexican that are coming to us, almost a man just passed away and left it in his will in anticipation for this. That happened last week and so he has all these weapons and different things that he's been collecting, dealing with the Santa Fe Trail days and so the first main floor of the new annex is just going to be a history of New Mexico, you know, to just give people why. We're the state history museum and people will come here to learn New Mexico's history and New Mexicans will come here too because we don't get that much in school here, God knows. That's what they do. They come here, we feel like they're introduced to the Southwest when they come to Santa Fe and a lot of cases. Right now we have 82% visitorship from outside of the state and so they need to know something about what they're seeing.

Yeah, it's different but why, you know, why are we so neat and they're not, you know. And so we will do that and that gets me to something else. Some of the detractors as we've campaigned for this would say, well why should we give money to museums? That's not the state's business or anything else. This museum is the engine that drives a lot of economic positives in New Mexico and any museum is. Not only is it quality, a living that a government should concern itself with, but you know, people come here. If 82% of our visitors are from out of state and we project, we're going to get 200,000 visitors, whereas right now we're getting around 120,000 on average and they come here from out of state. You know to get to Santa Fe, they're going to spend a night in New Mexico. They're going to be in a hotel in Albuquerque, a hotel here, a hotel in Las Vegas going out. So we're going to spend another $70 to $120 for a hotel. They have to eat. They've got a pay for gas. They probably paid a train or a plane ticket to get here, which means they paid an airport

tax to Albuquerque. And you can see that this begins to start generating and then even by souvenirs and everything else if they need some tan lotion for the summer because the ultraviolet light rays and, I mean, you know, it's a whole big economic thing that's just good for everybody. One of the things we should have mentioned, there is a private foundation. There is a private foundation that has been set up. There is a private foundation that has been set up in effect to support the museum, all the museums. I mean, the museum of New Mexico, which has various branches. But these, this foundation has continually been at our side. Whenever we needed, you know, extra money, help and so on, they were there. I think by having this wonderful new facility, the work of the foundation will be made much easier. I think many of your viewers are going to say, you know, I've got to look in my attic. I remember things that I would like to share with our citizens and the possibilities

are really enormous. We will have a gift shop, a new gift shop and the new annex. A gift shop, as it is now, brings in almost 800,000, and this is gross, a year with a gift shop, which we strategically have placed next to the public restrooms that we had to agree to to get money from the city. We anticipate we'll make a great deal of money, of which we'll go through the foundation to the museums. So we've tried to think of every conceivable way to assure that what we have done is, is being supported and will carry its own weight in so far as we can do it, and we've succeeded, I believe. So, you believe this will become a major tourist and probably scholarly job for people to ask? The short answer is yes, undoubtedly. This thing is going to be spectacular.

The collections and the stuff that we're going to show with the storage open to the public and the new exhibits that we have slated, we've already come up with 19 different things that we want to do in the way that's going to go with the funding that they will get and then generate on their own. This is going to be spectacular. This is going to be as good as it gets in the museum world in this part of the woods. By that I mean the Southwest United States. And I think we'll really set up for something that is going to make everybody very proud in this state and it's going to be an attraction as if we needed more, but we do because the tourism is a big part of our economy. It's going to be a major attraction outside of the state. No question in my mind about that. Tell us a little bit again about what we're going to see in this thing. You're going to walk into a building that is three floors above ground and two floors below ground with a three-story atrium inside of it that I jokingly call the Frank Ortiz

Great Hall. It cost me five million dollars to get that. But he's making payments a bucket a week or something and so there's a fly drake balcony for me to give staff speeches when our listeners have, we're just kidding. It'll have a three-story atrium in the middle there where we can have weddings and chamber music concerts and lectures and different things. It'll have three floors of exhibits and four floors of open storage areas. It'll have floor-to-ceiling smoked glass maps with fiber optics and mapping out trails and different things we want to point out. It's going to have a new technology called pressed glass where you take a work of art and you melt the colors right into glass and it looks like stained glass but it's not. It's even more nuances with the colors that will give a mural, hopefully the plan is

now that we'll have three artists, Native American, Hispanic and Mangle, all do an aspect of that part of New Mexico's history right next to each other and we'll have a changing gallery for outside exhibits and I think this is really exciting and that I'm here as the director of the State History Museum to give the history of New Mexico to people who come here and people who live here. But we don't have the room to do nor the facilities and we will where this new one is, why shouldn't New Mexicans have access to the blockbuster shows that the other people in the country get with this? We will bring them in and we are not at liberty to say what, but we've been talking to the Spanish ambassador both here and Frank delivered a hand delivered a type letter that I did, I didn't hand draw it, making a proposal to him that is going to be a spectacular blockbuster to open the thing with and hopefully the King Queen Spain will be here for that and my successors will be able to bring in those kinds of shows and so you could have the Alexander

to the Great Show or the show on the Vikings that's now traveling around, why not New Mexicans need to know about the rest of the world and they should have the opportunity as well as anybody else and so we will do both things and so it's going to be a really neat building and from that you can walk into the palace of the governors, the crown jewel, the system still now polished and let it tell its story. I mean the walls will literally be talking to you in there and so that fine old building once again be able to tell its story without being compromised and so it will all be in one for one admission or not if you come on a free time and it's going to be available to everyone. So you'll move the current collections out of the palace of the governor. The building was never built as a museum, it was built as a series of rooms for governments or living so it was never meant to be a museum.

I should say we're not going to close the palace, we're going to build the annex and install that and part of the palace because part of the palace will be vacated with some of the stuff that we're going to move into the annex like the shop and so forth and when we open the annex we'll have new exhibits in those vacated areas and the palace we won't have to close it. After we do that we'll close the palace to lift all the trap doors and do all of that and while the annex is open with its new exhibits and that we've installed in the palace so the public's never going to be denied access into exhibits and a museum here at all and it's playing one of those games you know you have a little squares you have to get them in order and there's one blank thing you got to do this and that you know we're on property right now over which we're going to build the new annex and the buildings we're in now are slated for demolition so the staff and the collections have to be moved off site somewhere and we have some ideas about that you know we've been planning this out and you know this isn't a complete surprise in fact I always would be cup half full

even though it's an eighth full I always assumed that we were going to get things and have been planning that way and so it's staff and so are the supporters of even though Frank once jumped off a bridge occasion when he gets disappointed he still hasn't done it has it he's still sitting here isn't he and alive and well about to see it all happen and so we've been planning this out and we're not going to deny public access to the history of New Mexico in the state history museum at any point during all of this and you know we know pretty much how we have to you know what squares have to be moved to do it and what the timing is in everything so we are starting to do that now the big thing for us now is to raise endowment money now people can get naming opportunities for galleries and so forth and this is going to be a reality we have to get to a certain point so we have some of that money ready to spend for installation of the exhibits we have to start writing some grants for exhibit installation as well so you know all that we know and you know the

work isn't over we haven't even stopped to celebrate yet you know we just so boy now we got to do the A B and C because this this has been accomplished it's like we've completed the library well let's buy the property behind it so we can get ready to to campaign for the annex we bought the property they said no one now we got to get the planning for the annex and we started that we got the planning now we started with the you know getting the money to do the building so it's it's one thing after the next but we're getting closer and closer and as the TV show used to say I love it when a plan comes together so what's the next step where when do we start to see this actually happen we need to talk with the Regents of Frank's one of them and the bureaucracy the state bureaucracy because it involves a lot of them and talk about the timing we have a plan and how we think it'll be done and we have to kind of sell them on that of course ours is probably quicker than anybody would like to see done but we think we have an emergency here we have the money but as we said in the tour the collections are still in harm's

way you know until we build the annex so they will be in harm's way so we need to get going with that and get it up sooner rather than later so I'm not one that wants to sit on my Komo Sayama and say well it's just the state bureaucracy in a way of doing things people need to understand that this is important and they need to make an effort to get it done a little bit you know to sign up with a contract you've got to pick a good contract you're going to do bids all that do the bids go through the usual efforts to make sure that everything is done right that people who are doing it know what they're doing and you're looking at breaking grounds I would hope that we could break ground I know there's some preliminaries we have to do on the site we have to do an archeological survey we have to finish the construction drawings and we have to put a strength in the foundation of the back wall of the palace we tested that found that if we did any heavy construction where the building is going to go the new building is going to go we could possibly shake down that back wall which we don't want to do because the whole

purpose of this is preserving the collections and I already explained the palace as part of the collection so we have to do that and we'll do that as soon as we can and have it all done by the summer we're not going to do any heavy stuff this summer because of all the tourists and everybody in town we don't want to disrupt that that's a big part of the economy again so we're not into doing that so after fiesta sometime given the finishing of the drawings the letting out of bids you usually have to wait a month or so to let everybody get their bids together to get them in then you go through the jewellery process and all of that probably November it starts in demolition at the earliest and then that's what we'll shoot for. Do you have a design for it? The architect because we've received $750,000 in planning money as I've said I didn't give you the amount but I told you we have a work-through design review phase with the planning and the next phase is the working drawings the architects have there's a team in place of you know it's not one architect as a team there's a you know there's like lighting

experts for museums there's storage and open storage collections experts for museums there's all this stuff a museum isn't a house nor is it a store it's not a gas station it's a specialized building like all those other things aren't so you find architects are to kind of specialize in that to work with you and they've been they've spent hundreds of hours with the staff talking about what needs to be done measuring things you know what do we project we'll receive all of that stuff and they built the building from the inside out what hasn't been done yet is the outside design we know what the space is you know we can tell you here's how it's going to step up and it's going to take up this much square footage and it's going to be this high and this wide but we haven't designed the outside because that's the last thing we'll do we're fortunate and I need to say this up front that we didn't hire an architect or end up with an architect who's in our teeth he sees his building as a sculpture a statement to the rest of the world it'll be non-functional what's important here is what's going to be in the building how do you meet the challenge of designing that building at least the outside of the building which will be the public face of it

that lives in harmony with a building like the palace and governance almost 400 year old building and lives in harmony on the historic sand and closet oh that that that's easy frankly what's hard is finding somebody who's willing to to take the easy road and do that first of all we have the palaces of models so the architect can look at that and see a model of style second of all this city in particular has a lot of very stringent codes that create the parameters beyond which you can't go now we're a state building we don't legally have to abide by that but beyond that there is in my mind a higher law we live in Santa Fe this building will be in Santa Fe so that's even more important than what the state law says we don't have to do and I've said all along for 20 years if this ever happened we will go before every city committee and get their approval as if we weren't a state thing so all of that makes a sure that this is going to be

not only a model of a museum but a model for downtown Santa Fe we're not going to put up the Guggenheim or some kind of you know modern art thing in the middle of Santa Fe we would never do this never been our intent nor would anybody I think associated with this building be crazy enough to try that was anything particular that you ought to see as the building well I'm have great confidence in the in the firm that has been in charge of planning for the new building my impression is that they're quite aware of vital importance of having the building not be decimate with the with the rest of the city and so on and I think they're addressing it very very well and I'm confident knowing Santa Fe there will always be some some criticism I'm sure of that I mean that goes without saying but I think on the whole it will turn out to be

what all of us have dreamed all these years that it will be you know we we have in place along with what I said we have the foundation that's taken an active interest in this and we have the friends of the palace and the friends of the palace which is Frank said were formed by concerned citizens have been a godsend if they did nothing else they they they created a good morale among staff because he were people working form so staff can see here's people that actually appreciate what we're doing you know museum staffs kind of working quiet and you never see him unless there's a controversy with these people were out you know doing not just raising money but doing the politics you know one thing for me to try to do the politics by myself but when I have operatives everywhere you know working for me and telling me I should be here or there go see these people write a letter of thanks to this one and whatever it makes it easier well these people all have a vested interest in this they've been working on this for two decades and and and some of them come after that and they've gotten into and we have people who've moved here or gotten involved

just last year and we'll invite everybody out there to get involved now and in the future but they're not about to let this be screwed up at this point you know I think if somebody came in if I if I all of a sudden took a crazy pill and decided hey I'm you know I want to put up a titanium building they would throw me off the bridge I wouldn't have to jump they'd just toss me all right it's just not going to happen there's too many people involved with this who are citizens of this community in the state you know doing that the state's not limited to Santa Fe there are people in Albuquerque who've been involved in being given money and been politicking two different mayors of Albuquerque of signed petitions to help us get them money the current one in your previous one so you know we've had statewide support and they're not about to let this get off track at this point there's a few more questions who are opening dates when you look at the case saying this open November 2005 if we start in November of 2002 what you can do is look when when the big ball starts going through the buildings

that were in a demolisher you just just add three years to that two years for construction one years for instant installation where's some of the challenges that you might still face between now that you have the money and open your day the big challenge is endowment getting money to to the pay for the installation of the building the secondary challenge is going back next year to legislature and the new governor to get the balance of the construction I mean that's going to happen but we still are going to have to justify it and everything and so and we're so used to that I look forward to that now you know this was actually Frank's strategy so if we get enough to dig the hole they will come you know based on the baseball movie I think that I think what he was thinking actually is get the money dig a hole throw a big and the world the biggest the mother of all mudwrestling contest would be the mother of all fundraisers and they will come all right and so but you know we've we've lost sleep over this but we've enjoyed doing it because it is you know it was a crusade that it's worthy of a crusade and so the challenges

are still out there but then you've reached the big hump and gotten over it now. But this ought to be a very exciting project and people are just learning about this now if they want to become involved and help what can people do at this point? Well there's so many things that what occurs to me if people are about giving mind to contribute to our endowment fund we're really aiming for 10 million with 10 million we would have enough for acquisitions because there's still a lot of things that have disappeared from New Mexico and that occasionally come onto the market as it is now anytime we find something I got we have to raise them on you privately we have to be sure that the staff gets all the education and the support and whatever that they need the endowment would allow us for example to bring new people onto the staff until the state can take over the salaries and so on things that need

to be done so many things that that your viewers can contribute to and I can assure them that they get a real good feeling knowing that they've contributed in a very significant way to do what our state is there are collections and people's addicts there are things old trunk somewhere they can look at those as you know we collect books maps all sorts of artifacts historical artifacts even reminiscences papers for example I'm going to leave my collection of papers on my career photographs family photographs things of that sort your viewers can can can really make this what we know it will be a major major historical and geographical center in the nation now you're just about to leave your retirement here and

going to the National Hispanic Center you kind of feel like Moses showing his people with the valley and do you kind of regret leaving now that it has happened nice biblical analogy you know Moses so traveled the desert for many years with thousands maybe even millions of people who knows you know and I've had that I've done nothing without all the people around me with with a great staff that's been with me for almost 20 years they're all started retiring this year which was one of my goals before I left is replacing them with people equally as good and we have one more to go and so far been successful with that and then to get the money in place you know I set this date intentionally to be here for the legislative session and to deal with the governor and I said it intentionally to be here after the governor signed it on the assumption that he would because we had people who promised to to give collections in and endowment funds if we did sign so now I'm visiting with all of them and and and get them to sign on the dotted line and committed to that

you know no one's we're all mortals the best way of saying we're all mortals and and I you know I unfortunately in state employment it gets you get you to the point when you're peaking in your career when you're the most qualified for what you're doing and then they either move you out or retire you wanted it to and the certain point end up paying the state to stay with them because you know you can be collecting up to 80% of your salary and that's that's one unfortunate thing yeah the other thing is and I really do believe this outside of dictatorships in the world the people you know 20 to two decades in the same job is long enough and usually the last person to know that's the person in the job you know people realize the guy's kind of lost bitters that you know technologies passed him by or whatever and you need to get him out but he's such an esteemed lovely w old coupe that maybe we'll just keep him there and not hurt his feelings and I don't want to be that I think it's it's it's good for for the institution it's good for me to

have new blood come in at a certain point and this is a this is a wonderful point I'm young and and I'm still in the same agency as this until I do retire and then you know I'll still be a Santa fan and and I'm I'm member of the foundation now and the palace is the palace guard which is a special support group for us and I've already been told that I'll be getting calls and invited back to explain certain things and help out with certain people because you know you know fundraisings like recruiting for say a sports team unfortunately the sports world of coach leaves and takes all those recruits with them right I don't intend to do that at all I intend to follow through on the blockbuster exhibit that we're lining up for here not wherever I'll be I intend to follow up on the major fundraisers that I've been talking to and become personal friends and I'm real lucky there all the fundraisers here that we have lined up with just good neat people that have been a joy to know as human beings and countless friends and and I

will continue to meet with them and encourage them to to follow through so I'm just not going to be paid and hold an office here but I'll yeah I'm not leaving I'm not going away this is not well we'll see to that so any final thoughts then I don't really have any more questions at this point any final thoughts about getting to this point and we're even different here we'll first Frank well it's just it's just the the what what has been accomplished has been extraordinary I think and as Tom said we owe so much to so many people but the challenges ahead are now a great opportunity and I think we have to be up to that I think everyone involved which is contributed so much up till now has has a great obligation to see it through and see it through well and again I'll return a little bit to something that I think is very significant that has attracted me to this and that is in a short period of time in our nation there will be a very

high proportion of the citizens who will be of Hispanic origin or or culture and I think it's an obligation to teach the nation that that there is a historical basis that is unparalleled but unknown and what we're accomplishing is much more than something regional it's something of I think enormous importance to the future of this country because I think these communities have to understand that they are part of the fabric from the initiation of the weaving they have been there industriously doing their their thing for me to me that's quite important the Frank Frank's understated as usual he's absolutely right my message I'm you know I am by training a historian if I'm nothing else on that and I take pride in that and New Mexico is it's not a national thing our messages for the world I mean here's the only place in North America

where Europeans and Native Americans have lived together for four centuries no one else can make that claim and so you don't need to know the details of history you know something happened here that's different and what happened here are our ancestors and that's a message obviously that some parts of the rest of the world should learn that you know you know you can go to another person's religious dance and enjoy it without somehow being infected or something that you can eat a breed or even for breakfast and not kill the cook you know and then you know to New Mexicans what's going on in the Middle East gotta seem real stupid to him or the Ireland for Northern Ireland there are a number of places in the world we have a message for the rest of the world that diverse people can live together and benefit from it that we are richer for it and that there's nothing wrong to speak different language we're only stating a union it's officially bilingual we're the only stating union there has USA on this license plate you know not because we're patriotic it's because the rest of the nation doesn't know who we are

or that we're a part of them but you know we have this message that is a very important message and it can start here with the with the State History Museum or start with the university and start in both places but we need to get that message out the rest of the world needs to learn about in New Mexico because we're a great example of how it should be done and the last thing I want to say is thank you to all the people and I mean a lot of them some of them aren't with us now you know they passed away and I was thinking about that the day that the government signed the legislation rather than go out in a big drunken brawl I took my assistant who'd been with neutral Bennett for two centuries or two two decades