September 12, 2000
CONTENTS:
- Art dealers indicted over stolen works
- Maryhill Museum burglary (betty Long)
- Discrimination at Kimbell Museum, final words (Steve Keller)
- Calcutta to restore splendour of the Raj (the Marxist government of West Bengal has cast aside ideological inhibitions and asked English Heritage to help)
- Antiquities Authority denies excavations at Wall
Art dealers indicted over stolen works
Two art dealers -- one from suburban Milwaukee and the other from Chicago -- have been accused of using threats and violence to hide and sell millions of dollars worth of artifacts stolen in Italy.
Over the years, River North antiques dealer Richard O'Hara sold gorgeous terra cotta from the demolished National Pythian Temple in Bronzeville and showed off another treasure, John Dillinger's Indiana prison file. But now O'Hara is accused of turning to threats and violence to hide and peddle stolen Italian artifacts worth millions of dollars. O'Hara, 58, of Wilmette, is charged along with a Wisconsin art gallery colleague with conspiracy to possess and sell stolen property, according to an indictment unsealed this week in Wisconsin federal court. The precious items included three 16th century brass astrolabes--antique navigational instruments. A fourth item was a 17th century brass armillary sphere, an astronomical instrument made up of rings that show positions in the celestial sphere. The hot goods came from the Osservatorio Astronomica di Roma in Italy, which was hit by burglars in May 1984, the indictment says. In the late 1980s, the stolen items were acquired on the black market by O'Hara's colleague, Wisconsin antiques dealer Marilyn Karos, 59, of Whitefish Bay, just north of Milwaukee, the indictment alleges.
Marilyn Karos, 59, of Whitefish Bay is suspected of luring a man who was to help sell the items into her home, where three men beat him, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday. The target of the beating nearly three years ago was a Libyan-born fine-art broker named Zak, who spoke with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on condition that his full name not be used. Karos had Zak, 34, beaten after he refused to return two of the four stolen items, the indictment said. One of the men who allegedly beat Zak was Richard F. O'Hara, 58, of Winnetka, Ill., who later told an attorney that Zak would be killed if he didn't return the items, the indictment said. Karos and O'Hara were charged in the indictment with conspiring to possess and sell stolen property and possessing and bartering stolen goods. Karos, 59, also was charged with a third count of possessing and bartering stolen goods. They pleaded innocent to the charges Thursday in U.S. District Court. ``This is not your ordinary general crimes case,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Johnson. ``There have been acts of violence in this case. We do believe (O'Hara) is a danger at least to the one witness named and several others.'' Attorney Stephen M. Glynn, who represented both defendants at the hearing, declined to comment. Karos, who ran Karos Fine Art, bought and sold furniture, art and antiques through O'Hara's Galleries in Chicago. She ended up with four items stolen from the Osservatorio Astronomica di Roma in May 1984, the indictment said. The pieces were a globe-like armillary sphere and three astrolabes -- compact devices used during the Renaissance to locate celestial bodies for navigation on sea and land, according to the indictment. FBI Special Agent Barry Babler has said that the items were worth at least $1 million each. Karos knew they were stolen, the indictment said. Karos and O'Hara have been charged in Milwaukee County Circuit Court with felonies related to the beating of Zak. Those charges are pending.
Date sent: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 11:09:03 -0700
From: maryhill@gorge.net (Patricia Perry)
Organization: Maryhill Museum of Art
To: securma@xs4all.nl
Subject: Maryhill Museum burglary
Mr. Keller, Thank you for your response to the news reports of the theft at our museum. I follow all your input on the Museum Security Network and pass a great deal of it on to our security staff. The press had greatly exaggerated the reports and I agree completely with you about local petty thieves. Our sheriff's department is moving on that as well. We have notified every possible dealer, collector and pawn shop in our region for 200 miles in each direction. Again there are always steps to be taken to deter thieves and we are making some changes to prevent further problems. I've passed on your suggestions about systems maintenance to the bldg. operations manager, (obviously I'm the only one that monitors this web site)
Thanks again, all information is most welcome,
Regards, Betty Long,
Registrar
From: IntlArtCop@aol.com
Date sent: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 01:00:26 EDT
Subject: Discrimination at Kimbell Museum
To: securma@xs4all.nl
I read the above thread with interest. Many years ago when the ADA was passed, I produced a video for museum security officers on just this subject. The point of the video was that it is impossible for a typical security officer earning perhaps minimum wage and often unaware of the politically correct issues of our time to respond properly to every conceivable request for accommodation. The bottom line of the video was to alert the security officers that there is this new law and that all you need to do is recognize it when you see it and if you can't accommodate the visitor, call a supervisor. Our strategy for museums was that since it is virtually impossible to train museum guards on even the basics, we could at least train the supervisor on the ADA and get the guard to refer requests to the supervisor.
It appears in this instance, the guard must have referred the matter to a supervisor and that there must have been discussion. I'm not an attorney but I have read nearly every page of the ADA and its related Justice Department documents that were intended to guide companies and institutions in implementation. This is a great deal of material intended to give everyone a concept as to the spirit of the law if not how to deal with every single request.
Clearly, in my opinion, a guard in a museum is reasonable in calling a supervisor if the request for special accommodation does not result in an unreasonable delay. And it is reasonable to ask the person making the request to explain the need as long as that inquiry is not an interrogation or doesn't subject the person making the request to embarrassment or invasion of privacy.
I know for a fact that it is not uncommon for people to claim a disability to justify their need for an exception to the rules. It happens every day in some larger museums. When I was in Chicago, we had one person a week claim that a stroller is a wheelchair, only to find that after we accommodated the request, the child ran loose and the stroller was used to carry the diaper bag. (We allowed strollers but not in major special exhibits with high density). So I think that questioning the request is not unreasonable.
I think that it is pretty clear that a museum, when given a statement by the disabled person that a disability is being claimed, should be prepared to defend themselves if they refuse to accommodate the visitor. This is where the museum begins to take a risk.
I personally think that museums are far too restrictive on many things. Museums are not very friendly places. (Boy, am I in trouble since I am a consultant to 300 of them but that is the subject of another thread). Many of the retrictions we have on visitors are based on urban myths, not reality. It's true, for example, that very large, rigid baby carriers carried on the back can damage pictures. I saw it happen with my own eyes. But that doesn't mean all baby carriers should be banned. Soft carriers on the front of the parent don't pose the same risk but are banned in the same stroke of the pen in many museums. A long formal umbrella can harm a picture but small folding "Totes" type umbrellas are banned as well in most institutions. Why?
To say that once, someone tripped over a stroller and fell, will not stand up in court. Once, someone slipped on liquids on the floor of a museum, but museums don't ban wine and cheese functions. Once, someone dropped his coat, posing a tripping hazard and once, someone fell over a curatorial cart or a contractor's tool box, but these activities are not always banned in all museums. The ADA makes accommodations for wheelchairs for the disabled, so why should a stroller for the disabled be different? The ADA makes accommodation for a seeing eye dog so why shouldn't another type of animal for the disabled be accommodated? The same theory applies to seeing eye dogs for the blind and dogs that aid the anxiety prone. We don't allow guards to decide that a seeing eye dog is OK but a dog used by a person who gets panic attacks shouldn't be OK just because the guard doesn't know about this form of therapy.
The issue here is that a person claimed a disability, it is a reasonable request, and there is no reason to believe that the person is lying so it must be accommodated in a reasonable manner without unreasonable delay or embarrassment to the disabled. Perhaps 50 million visitors have visited museums without injuries since one of them tripped over a stroller, so it is, in my opinion, reasonable to simply tell the adult visitor of the museum's safety concern and ask them to take special care in using their stroller.
I think that the museum, however, did accommodate the complainant. It appears that they assigned a supervisor to assist her, more accurately, to make certain that her use of a stroller in the museum didn't harm anyone. Assuming she was not unreasonably delayed, I think that while the museum guards might not have acted perfectly and the policy limiting strollers might not be needed for the reasons stated by the guard, they do have the right to restrict strollers in general and they do have a right to expect the complainant to explain her need.
I have been criticized as insensitive on several occasions for not arguing that security people should, without any questions whatsoever, yield to every request by the disabled. I do feel that they should always accommodate the disabled. I only feel that guards have a right to call their supervisor and let the decision come from him or her when the issue is not clear cut and they should not be subject to criticism for doing so. And on issues where public safety or even crowd flow might be involved, assigning an escort is acceptable (assuming that the escort handles the assignment properly).
I don't know what happened at the Kimball. But it sounds to me like the complainant WAS accommodated. ("I ended being escorted through the museum exhibit by the weekend supervisor."). So what exactly is the complaint?
I was once threatened with a suit by a disabled person because I closed the private property parking lot of the museum I worked for and did not allow anyone to park there until just before the museum opened. This prevented the 18 parking spaces including two handicapped spaces, from being taken by commuters who worked in nearby offices, and thus were not available for our museum visitors. A working in a downtown office who is disabled said that we had to make the disabled parking available to her even though she never visited the museum and other spaces were available closer but in a city pay lot, and the attorney general issued an opinion that she was right. So I know that my opinion, however reasonable I think it my be, may not hold legal water. And I know that if, after carefully considering all aspects of the issue over a period of a week or more, I still acted in a manner that violated the law, then I must be very forgiving of a guard who makes an error in judgment, if indeed, one was made.
I am sensitive to the disabled because my father was disabled. I got a taste of minor disability several years ago when, for several years, I developed fibomyalgia (which I have since been cured of), so I know how the complainant in the Kimball matter must feel when people think she is faking her illness because she doesn't look disabled. But I learned something from my father who held the opinion that life isn't always fair and sometimes people are ignorant. I was with him at a grocery store when he parked in a handicapped space and walked into the store. With only one leg, and impending heart failure, he could make it in perfectly well, but might well need 20 minutes to get back to the car after this minor exercise. Another customer, a "sensitive" well intentioned person, screamed at him all the way into the store for parking in a handicapped space when he obviously was not in a wheelchair. His attitude was that while he should not have to tattoo "disabled" on his forehead to qualify for accommodation and understanding, people will be people. He always tried to educate them rather than sue them or get them fired from their jobs. He recognized, as the complainant might, that before he became disabled, he was just as ignorant. You can pass a law, but it takes time to turn around an entire society's attitude. This process won't be complete for decades.
So should a disabled person sue a museum that fails to accommodate? Only if the suit is needed to force a change in a non-compliant policy. The law may be ten years old, but it is still evolving with each court case, indicating that it is complex. We can't hire lawyers as guards--and if we did, they still debate what the law actually means and requires.
Be satisfied with the fact that you have just reached well over a thousand people who control the training and actions of perhaps tens of thousands of security officers in museums, and you, by your letter, have educated all them.
Steve Keller
Museum Security Consultant
Calcutta to restore splendour of the Raj
By Isambard Wilkinson and Rahul Bedi
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
THE Marxist government of West Bengal has cast aside ideological inhibitions and asked English Heritage to help to restore Calcutta's fading imperial heritage. The cupolas and colonnades of the city's colonial centre were once one of the finest groups of buildings in the British Empire. Now run down and crumbling, they are to be restored as part of efforts to rebrand the state capital's "City of Dreadful Night" image. English Heritage will advise the city on conservation and try to raise money in Britain through government and lottery funding to rescue Raj-era buildings. Philip Davies, a director of English Heritage and author of several books on the architectural legacy of the Raj, said: "India and Britain enjoy a special relationship that goes back more than 400 years. There is a shared cultural heritage and this is something unique. There is the perception that our heritage ends at Dover, but some of our greatest buildings of the 19th century were built overseas. Probably the best example is Calcutta."
The city authorities also plan to return to the city centre statues which have been stored in the suburb of Barrackpore for many years. Figures such as George V and Sir Robert Peel will go back to their original plinths or be grouped together in a prominent area.
Mr Davies conceded that a Marxist government asking English Heritage to help restore buildings designed to glorify the Empire has created curious bedfellows. "The empire-building issue never came up, though. It is strange to think about it, but the Indians are remarkably pragmatic and don't seem to have an axe to grind about the British connection. It is such a rich and cosmopolitan society, and having had different conquerors over the centuries the Raj is just one part of the past."
Calcutta, described by Kipling as the "City of Dreadful Night" is keen to cast off its dark image, with its associations with the Black Hole and the slums in which Mother Teresa worked.
Despite the size of the task, English Heritage says relatively small sums of money could have a considerable impact. Mr Davies said: "With a fraction of the money spent on one project in England you could transform the centre of Calcutta. They have already transformed part of the Hooghly River waterfront with a remarkable Millennium garden for only £20,000. In England it would have cost £20 million."
Once the second city of the Empire, Calcutta replaced Madras as the centre of British India in 1772, almost a century after it was founded by the merchant-adventurer Job Charnock in 1690. The city still possesses a panorama of neo-classical, stucco-faced buildings such as Government House and grand edifices like the Writers' Building of the East India Company.
From across the Maidan, the city's Hyde Park, all these buildings form a striking, if now somewhat jaded, spectacle. The view is partly obscured by mature trees and the huge open space is now shabby and strewn with rubbish. Calcutta's great public buildings were largely built by military engineers working from handbooks, like Major William Nairn Forbes who designed the city's cathedral, St Paul's, and the Silver Mint. It also has numerous homes built for the wealthy merchant class. The most renowned building is the Victoria Memorial, with its crowning dome.
Many of Calcutta's colonial warehouses, ghats and more obscure buildings have already been "discovered" and listed. Mr Davies said: "Behind billboards you find remarkably complete buildings from the late 18th century which have enormous potential."
One immediate concern for conservationists is Clive of India's house at Dum Dum, which is now dilapidated. Trees grow from its masonry and the building is disintegrating rapidly. It is currently home to several families and its ownership is in dispute.
Antiquities Authority denies excavations at Wall
By Etgar Lefkovits
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2000/09/07/News/News.11885.html
The Antiquities Authority yesterday strongly denied that Israel is undertaking any archeological excavations under the Western Wall. Refuting an article that appeared in Tuesday's Ha'aretz, the authority issued an unequivocal statement that "there are no archeological excavations under the Western Wall, and there has been no discovery of an ancient tunnel." The authority pointed out that while a Second Temple-era tunnel exists, it has never been open to the public due to the fear of possible cave-ins. The tunnel served as part of a Herodian street's rainwater drainage network, paralleling the Western Wall and running beyond the confines of the Temple Mount. It has been written about in scientific publications, archeological reports, and tourist guides.
The initial report of an Israeli archeological excavation was swiftly denounced by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Ikrima Sabri, who warned yesterday that the work was endangering the mosques and could lead to an explosion. "The whole site is being destroyed. All the Islamic architecture is being destroyed," Adnan Husseini, spokesman of the Jerusalem Wakf, or Islamic Trust, told Reuters.
Husseini accused Israel of pursuing excavations at Al-Aksa Mosque since 1967. In response, Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert said yesterday that this was yet another "desperate attempt by the mufti and the PA to incite and provoke the emotions of the Moslem population against Israeli sovereignty at the Temple Mount, and over Jerusalem."
Olmert called the mufti's warnings of a possible explosion "outrageous and ridiculous," adding that "regrettably, such pressures tactics have become common practice by the PA."