#public-history

#public-history

After 86 years as HistoryMiami Museum, the downtown institution has officially rebranded itself as the Museum of Miami, in a change that leadership describes as a major evolution from a traditional history museum into something far broader. The change comes with a new logo, a new tagline (“Love the Story”) and a plan to become what the museum calls a “museum without walls,” meaning exhibitions, storytelling projects and other programming will increasingly move out into neighborhoods across Miami-Dade instead of staying confined to its downtown building.

Kat Lloyd stands in the dim light on the first-floor staircase of a dilapidated, New York City tenement building. Before her: a tour of wide-eyed teens on a field trip from their high school in Queens. Their guide, Lloyd, encourages the students to imagine the building's 22 apartments when they were new, back in 1863, and brimming with mostly German immigrants.

The proposal will transform the existing space into a micro museum for the Monument to the Great Fire of London. It offers a great opportunity to provide a publicly accessible cultural space with unique historic interpretation of the Monument and its many layered stories.

"The stories that have shaped our past include not only elements that make us proud but also aspects that make us acutely aware of tragedies in our nation's history."