Museum's bank exhibit gets update

Interesting tidbit in a glowing review of Charlotte's Levine Museum of the New South: the banks exhibit is getting an update.

According to the New York Times review:

"The Levine’s president, Emily Zimmern, pointed out in an interview at the museum that in coming months the exhibition was being revised and that the final galleries would require particular attention: the show’s concluding section currently notes the triumph of banking in Charlotte — a business that is not quite what it used to be. (Bank of America, a major presence here, has less luster; and Wachovia, headquartered in Charlotte, was bought by Wells Fargo.)"

Fitting, perhaps, to the reviewer's point that the museum's triumph - museum historian's Thomas Hanchett's triumph, really - is its courage to deliver a straightforward, dispassionate account of the city's history.

Less successful, writer Edward Rothstein argues, is Greensboro's Historical Museum, which conjures the issue of race "out of existence" through "gauzy, nostalgic reconstructions."

Also of note for Charlotte, Rothstein says, is that budget cuts this year ended required visits to the museum for the county's eighth graders.

Click here to read the review.

- Doug Miller