On the eve of the new millennium, in 1999, The New York Times Magazine commissioned the celebrated architect Santiago Calatrava to design a time capsule.
His creation was a sensuous five-foot stainless-steel vessel; part star, part sphere, part flower, part fortune cookie. It was meant to survive for another millennium. Unlike most time capsules, The Times Capsule was intended to be kept aboveground.
The chambers within the capsule’s lobes were packed with items like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, a Purple Heart from the Vietnam War, Alcoholics Anonymous literature, a cellphone and a Beanie Baby unicorn.
Mr. Calatrava’s design was unveiled to the public on the cover of the Dec. 5 issue of the magazine, a copy of which is on display in the Museum at The Times.
This Times Capsule was given in 2001 to the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan for safekeeping. It was installed in a small plaza outside the west facade of the museum. The theory was that a beautiful object placed on conspicuous display by a venerable institution might actually stand a chance of being transmitted across the centuries to a scheduled opening in the year 3000.
Instead, The Times Capsule disappeared from public view in 2018.
The museum explained that the capsule had to be removed to allow for the construction of the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation. The capsule was to be reinstalled around the corner, on another aboveground site near the Rose Center for Earth and Space. The museum is permitted to move the capsule around on its campus, under an agreement with The New York Times.
All fine and good. But the capsule has been gone six years. What’s taking so long?
“The plan was always to install The Times Capsule after the Gilder Center was completed,” Anne Canty, a spokeswoman for the museum, said in a recent email. “Because of the pandemic constraints and related supply issues, the Gilder Center opened later than expected.”
That delayed other projects, including the return of the capsule. (It is being stored with Mariano Brothers Specialty Moving of Bethel, Conn.)
The plan now is to begin preparing the capsule’s new site in September 2025 and finish the concrete pour before school buses disgorge young visitors at the Rose Center. “September tends to be a low visitation month, both for school groups and general public visitors,” Ms. Canty wrote, “so a project like this is less obtrusive.”
“With a three-to-four-month construction schedule,” she wrote, “we anticipate it should be in place in early 2026.”
Time will tell if it can then sit undisturbed for 974 years.
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