Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts & Humanities

Mission

The mission statement of the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts & Humanities (MAC) can be summarized as follows: The Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts & Humanities (MAC) is a multi-faceted, not-for profit organization committed to promoting the preservation, interpretation and cultural enrichment of the Cape May, N.J. region for its residents and visitors.^[1]

Overview

In 1970 a small group of concerned Cape May, N.J. citizens banded together with the purpose of rescuing the 1879 Emlen Physick Estate, an 18-room Stick-style mansion, attributed to the American architect Frank Furness, from demolition. This group became known as the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts (MAC), a multifaceted not-for-profit organization committed to the preservation, interpretation, and cultural enrichment of the Cape May region for its residents and visitors. In 2009, “& Humanities” was added to the name, to better express the organization’s breadth of cultural programming.

Since that time, MAC has grown to become be a cultural leader of Cape May, N.J., by interpreting its history, supporting cultural and heritage tourism, restoring and preserving vital historical landmarks, partnering with local business and non-profits and educating a largely underserved population of students.

MAC presents a wide offering of tours and events that have expanded the tourism season beyond the typical 10 weeks of summer ocean-based activities, into the spring, fall and holiday seasons.

One of MAC’s fundamental missions is to provide educational resources to area educators and schoolchildren. MAC provides outreach programs at little to no cost to area schools, including offering in-class historical interpretation programs on numerous topics, and hosting trips to historic sites, as well as offering public programs such as the Cape May Music Festival. Each year, MAC’s educational outreach programs benefit more than 10,000 students.^[2]

History

Cape May’s spectacular rebirth as a Victorian theme destination has followed a highly unusual course. No wealthy philanthropist came to its rescue, showering millions of dollars to transform the town (as did a John D. Rockefeller, Jr. at Colonial Williamsburg). No Government super-agency stepped in and waved its magic wand (as did a National Park Service at Philadelphia’s Independence National Park).

Rather, Cape May’s revival has been a classic example of community “bootstrapping,” involving three major partners. The first is the City of Cape May, which has provided the necessary regulatory controls and resort infrastructure. The second is the Cape May business community, whose members have poured their life savings and sweat equity into restoring hundreds of historic buildings. The third is a cultural not-for-profit organization, the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts (hereafter referred to by its local acronym, MAC).

Since its founding in 1970, MAC has forged alliances with both other partners to further Cape May’s rebirth. In its early years, MAC focused largely on the city government, fighting to shift it toward a pro-preservation stance. With this struggle won MAC’s partnership with Cape May’s business community rose to the fore. Through its sponsorship of cultural tourism, MAC has become a principal agency for Cape May’s economic revival. By aggressively marketing an ever-growing roster of tours and special events, MAC has helped lure mass audiences to Cape May on a year-around basis. These visitors, in turn, provide the solid customer base that the business community needs to sustain scores upon scores of preservation success stories. MAC’s history to date falls into three distinct phases: the Pioneer Phase (1970-1980), when MAC waged its battle with City Hall and laid the foundation for its cultural tourism mission; the Adolescent Phase (1981-1987), when MAC experimented with different approaches before reaching its present trajectory; and the Growth to Maturity Phase (1988–present), when MAC has full-filled much of its early promise as the leader in Cape May’s economic and cultural rebirth.

Pioneer Phase (1970-1980)

MAC was formed in September 1970 at a critical juncture in Cape May’s history. In the course of the 1960s, Cape May had become a magnet for growing numbers of historic preservationists and artists, attracted by its unparalleled (albeit dilapidated) collection of Victorian seaside architecture. Their vision was increasingly at odds with the city government, which saw modern motel construction as Cape May’s panacea. When the historic Hotel Lafayette was torn down in the summer of 1970 to make way for the Marquis de Lafayette, the preservationists vowed that they would band together and fight any future demolitions.

They did not have long to wait. In September, the developer-owners of the Emlen Physick Estate (an 1879 mansion and outbuildings, vacant and vandalized, on eight overgrown acres) announced plans to bulldoze this landmark to make way for tract housing. To forestall this disaster, MAC’s founders (Fred Kuhner, Bruce and Connie Minnix and Carolyn Pitts) took the lead in incorporating the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts. By the very name they chose, they signaled that saving the Physick Estate was but a first step to achieving a very broad mission.

Their efforts to raise the $90,000 purchase price for the Physick Estate inadvertently led MAC’s founders into a pitched battle with City Hall. Federal funding was the likeliest source of money, but the HUD grants written by MAC’s founders had to be funneled through the municipal government. To the MAC group’s shock and fury, the city administration turned down the federal grant, citing its opposition to the loss of tax ratables.

Not to be denied, MAC’s leaders mounted a political revolution to achieve their goals. Running on a platform of quality of life and historic preservation, Bruce Minnix led a reform ticket to victory in the November 1972 elections. His first actions as mayor in 1973 were to accept the HUD grant, purchase the Physick Estate for the City of Cape May and immediately lease it to MAC for restoration and operation as a public cultural facility.

Minnix’s four years in office, crowned by the entire city’s being declared a National Historic landmark in 1976, proved to be a turning point in Cape May’s history. During his tenure, the slogan “our future is in our past” became the official policy of city government. Although Minnix was defeated for reelection in 1976, a commitment to historic preservation has marked every successive administration.

At the same time that they were waging these political battles, MAC’s founders were busy laying the organization’s foundations. Their first priority, naturally, was to restore the Physick Estate. They rallied an army of volunteers, who repaired leaking roofs, sanded and painted, reglazed missing windows, cleared jungle growth from the grounds, and carried out the myriad of other labors needed to bring the property back from the brink. A fierce internal debate ensued over how the facility would be used, with one faction urging that the main building be converted into artists’ studios and apartments and another advocating a more historic use. The latter view prevailed, leading to a thorough restoration of the main house and its operation as a Victorian house Museum (a mission which has continued to the present).

This project has benefited from a succession of professional consultants, including restoration architects Hugh McCauley and Hyman Myers, historic paint analyst Frank Welch, textile conservator Helene Von Rosensteil, and since the mid-1980s, the architecture/engineering firm of Watson & Henry Associates (Michael Henry and Penny Watson).

From the outset, however, MAC’s founders started programs that went far beyond restoring the Physick Estate. One of their major initiatives was to extend MAC’s interpretative net over the entire community. In 1971, they started offering guided walking tours of Cape May’s Historic District. The following year, they purchased the trolley-tour franchise of the defunct Victorian Village Development Corporation (a for-profit entity started in the mid-1960s whose assets also included an inventory of Victorian furniture that was placed in the empty Physick Estate), and in 1973 they began offering major historic house tours that opened large numbers of Cape May’s Victorian gems to the public.

Equally important, MAC’s founders launched special events that served a variety of purposes. They focused first on fund-raisers at the Physick Estate, starting with a Halloween “Haunted House” in October 1970 and a Victorian Fair on the grounds in the spring of 1971. They broke truly new ground in 1973 when they held the first Victorian Weekend over the Columbus Day holiday. As it grew in popularity, this October event had the effect of stretching the Cape May tourism season beyond the traditional ten weeks of summer. They continued this trend the following year, when MAC’s first Christmas Candlelight House Tour put Cape May on the path to becoming a major Christmas destination.

At the same time, MAC’s founders added a crucial marketing tool to their budding organizational structure. Filling a void, they launched the publication of “This Week in Cape May” (TWICM). Supported in full by advertisers and distributed free throughout the community, TWICM has become the “Bible” for a generation of Cape May visitors. TWICM’s success helped propel MAC into its role as the principal marketer of Cape May’s many attraction.

Adolescent Phase (1981-1987)

After a decade of spectacular growth and creativity, MAC found itself at a crossroads. Like a typical teenager, it faced some confusion as it experimented with options and experienced a variety of growing pains. Ultimately, MAC emerged from these trials with a sharpened sense of mission and a greatly enhanced infrastructure.

The overriding issues of this phase involved volunteer “burn out” and the beginnings of a professional staff. After carrying MAC through the triumphs of its early years, volunteer energy began to flag in the face of a growing public tour schedule. By the late 1970s, MAC reluctantly turned to hired staff to lead tours, drive trolleys, handle clerical chores and mow the grass at the Physick Estate.

The further decision to create a professional staff set off a storm of controversy. As volunteer burn out also invaded MAC’s Board leadership, President Herb Beitel (1981–83) led the move to replace the Office Manager with a staff Director. After several false starts involving experiments with part-time Directors, MAC hired its first full-time Director (this writer) at the end of 1982. The following summer, the organization added a full-time Tour Director. After several years of “creeping professionalization,” a predictable backlash occurred, and it took all of President Tom Carroll’s (1985-1987) strategic skills to steer MAC through this crisis. Efforts to turn back the clock to a “pure” volunteer state were defeated, and the organization was committed firmly to its present growth trajectory.

Nothing cemented this course more than the explosive increase in MAC’s public programming throughout this period. As Cape May’s fortunes rose in the 1980s in response to a national craze for Victoriana, so did the range and complexity of MAC’s tours and activities. From the single trolley

tour route of the 1970s, a second was added in 1983 and a third in 1985. In 1984, the four-day Victorian weekend in October was expanded to a ten-day Victorian Week. Christmas trolley tours were introduced to flesh out the holiday season, and special events were launched for February, April and May.

This phase also saw the start of MAC’s participation in joint ventures with for-profit partners. In 1981, the owners of three of Cape May’s leading Victorian landmarks approached MAC with a proposal to join with the Physick Estate in a MAC-sponsored Mansion by Gaslight tour. Offered weekly throughout the peak season, this tour proved so successful that it was joined in 1983 by a second group of houses (Cottages at Twilight) and by numerous other combinations in the years since. These ventures enhanced MAC’s ability to interpret the interiors of large numbers of Cape May’s restored Victorians for the public, while forging closer links between MAC and the business community and providing an important additional source of income. Other kinds of partnerships also took root in this period: starting in 1983, MAC brought in Don Coffman, a major promoter of antiques and craft shows, to cosponsor shows throughout the year; and in 1986, MAC joined with a local sightseeing boat to offer guided tours around Cape Island.

This period was not without its setbacks. Paramount was the 1981 decesion to construct an outdoor stage on a back corner of the Physick Estate. There followed an eight-year effort to mount a variety of performing arts programs, most notably a MAC-produced summer-stock theater series. In the face of mounting deficits and disappointing audiences, this program was suspended following the 1989 season.

While the sum of these experiences was positive and pointed to a bright future, it took one particular event to catapult MAC to its next phase of growth—the “acquisition” of the Cape May Lighthouse. The Lighthouse project was conceived by Tom Carroll, who started working on it in 1983. It took three years of intensive negotiations, involving the residents of Cape May Point, the U.S. Coast Guard and the New Jersey Division of Parks and Forestry, before MAC received a long-term lease for this 1859-vintage structure. Under the lease, MAC assumed responsibility for the restoration and operation of the Lighthouse as a museum. In 1987, the ground floor was opened to the public and planning was completed for the public safety improvements needed for climbing the tower.

The addition of the Cape May Lighthouse to MAC’s roster proved momentous in a number of ways. It offered a new area of interpretation, involving lighthouse and maritime history and technology. It brought major new audiences to MAC’s doorstep (e.g., lighthouse buffs, families with children), with the 60,000 visitors in 1988 increasing to over 110,000 by 1997. Reflecting the Lighthouse’s importance as a cultural tourism attraction, these numbers significantly enhanced MAC’s contribution to the local economy. The Lighthouse also housed MAC’s first Museum Shop, the origin of its current Retail and Wholesaling Division. Finally, the Lighthouse had a huge impact on MAC’s organizational structure, more than doubling its budget between 1986 and 1988.

Growth to Maturity Phase 1988-present)

Once through its Adolescent Phase, MAC embarked on a decade of virtually continuous success as the cultural tourism engine pulling the Cape May economy. In the process, it again more than doubled its organizational scale and budget, while offering an ever-wider array of cultural and educational programming.

Central to this mature accomplishment has been a continuation of the internal “era of good feeling” that was forged during Tom Carroll’s presidency in the mid-1980s. It has been achieved by the transformation of the MAC Board of Trustees from a “working board” to a “policy board,” and the prevalence of a spirit of mutual respect and partnership between the Board and staff. Much credit for this ongoing harmony belongs to the successive presidencies of Marianne Schatz (1989-1991), John Bailey (1992-1994), and Elan Zingman-LEITH (1995-1997).

Equally important has been the step-by-step growth of the professional staff. New positions created have included Communications Director (1987); Curator, Maintenance Director, Lighthouse Manager and Publications Associate (1988); Special Events Director, Marketing Director and Group Tour Manager (1989); two Assistant Directors (1992), which positions were upgraded to Deputy Directors in 1996; Comptroller (1992); Director of Retail Operations (1995); and Education Coordinator and Volunteer Coordinator (1997).

This growing staff has made it possible to manage existing programs while allowing MAC to strike out in new directions. A crucial infrastructure has been created, involving the gradual introduction of professional standards to a host of areas, including: accounting, ADA accessibility, collections management, communications, computers, database management, educational outreach, employee management, emergency planning, interpretation, long-range planning, maintenance, marketing, publications, restoration, retail, special events, staff training, and volunteer management. With this strong organizational capacity, MAC has been able to build vigorously on the foundation laid during its first two phases.

MAC has continued to make great strides in its efforts to extend the tourism season. In 1990, MAC launched the Cape May Music Festival as a strategy to attract visitors to the area during the “soft” weeks before the peak summer season. With significant grant support from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and unprecedented contributions from scores of area businesses and individuals, the Music Festival has grown into MAC’s flagship cultural offering. This phase has also seen a continual expansion of Christmas programming, with the number of Candelight House Tours increased from one to three, a wide variety of offerings added to the calendar, and the holiday season stretched from the weekend before Thanksgiving (Holiday Preview Weekend) to the weekend after New Year’s. In 1996, MAC transplanted the best of October’s Victorian Week to a Spring Victorian Weekend during the third weekend of April.

Part of this “season-stretching” has been accomplished with an expanding roster of partners. In conjunction with an association of innkeepers (Historic Accommodations of Cape May), MAC introduced successful Sherlock Holmes Mystery Weekends (Victorian Holmes Weekends) in March and November; Cape May’s innkeepers lend their expertise in March for a workshop on how to acquire, restore and operate a bed-and breakfast inn (INN Deep Workshop); and recently Cape May’s restaurant community joined forces with MAC to launch the Cape May Food and Wine Festival, scheduled for the last week in September.

Nor have MAC’s partnerships been limited to the for-profit sector. MAC has a growing number of joint ventures with the City of Cape May, including administering the Washington street Mall Information Booth (in return for selling City Beach Tags), and co-sponsoring a series of children’s cultural programs and crafts shows at Cape May Convention Hall. MAC/City cooperation culminated in 1997 with MAC donating $10,000 worth of acoustical upgrades to Convention Hall, which has become the principal venue of the Cape May Music Festival. MAC has joined forces with a number of area nonprofits, as well, cosponsoring nature walks (Harbor Safaris) with the Nature Center of Cape May, cross-marketing the Cape May Lighthouse with Historical Cold Spring Village, and providing marketing outreach and ticket sales for area theater companies. With the Delaware River and Bay Authority, MAC offers several packages designed to encourage visitors to leave their cars on the Delaware side and take the Cape May-Lewes Ferry and a shuttle bus to various MAC attractions.

This current phase has seen several giant steps forward in MAC’s administration of its historic sites. The Physick Estate is undergoing a systematic reinterpretation of the interior and grounds, taking into account the latest historical scholarship. The Physick Estate Carriage House has been rescued from its languishing condition and, after a major 1996-1997 overhaul, has been converted to a multipurpose community gallery. Major museum Shops at the Physick Estate and Carriage House have become another source of audience outreach.

At the Cape May Lighthouse, the 1989-1990 refurbishing of the tower windows and doors and the Oil House was followed by a $600,000 federally and state funded restoration of the lantern and repainting of the tower in its original colors in 1993-1994. An additional $916,000 in federal/state grants promises to complete the Lighthouse restoration project in 1998.

MAC has been a major force behind Cape May’s dramatic rebirth. With strong Board leadership, a membership base of over 2,800, an annual audience in excess of 350,000 and a staff of 130 (30 full-time and 100 part-time employees, making MAC one of Cape May’s largest employers), MAC stands poised to help Cape May sustain its preservation success story for the foreseeable future.^[3]

Present

MAC offers visitors to Cape May, N.J. many interesting things to do year round. Cape May's status as A National Historic Landmark City provides visitors and residents with a unique historic setting for a year-round roster of tours, events and activities for adults and children. Tours of Cape May's historic sites, crafts shows, trolley tours, walking tours, boat tours, house tours, ghost tours, food and wine events, music events, Sherlock Holmes Weekends, the Cape May Music Festival, Cape May's Spring Festival, summer's Craft Beer & Crab Festival, fall's Food & Wine Celebration, Halloween Happenings, the Christmas Season are some of the MAC events and activities that attract thousands of visitors each year to Cape May, N.J.^[4][5]

References