People
Protesters Target Trustee Tina Fey Over Expansion of New York’s Museum of Natural History
Protesters give the SNL veteran an F, and that's not for Funny.
Protesters give the SNL veteran an F, and that's not for Funny.
Brian Boucher ShareShare This Article
If comedienne Tina Fey shows up at the Friday night premiere of Sisters, the new movie in which she co-stars with Amy Poehler, she may get more attention than she bargained for.
A small group of protesters plans to attend the New York screening and issue a report card giving the “Saturday Night Live” and “30 Rock” veteran an F, and that F isn’t for Fey, or for Funny. It’s for her support of an expansion plan by New York’s American Museum of Natural History.
Fey serves on the museum’s board of trustees—along with SNL creator and producer Lorne Michaels and veteran newsman Tom Brokaw—and opponents hope to recruit her to their cause.
“There’s nothing funny about this… Ms. Fey owes her neighbors an explanation: why did she vote for this plan?” Cary Goodman, a protest organizer, said in a statement.
The Upper West Side institution announced its preliminary expansion plan a year ago, and unveiled designs by Chicago architect Jeanne Gang last month. The price tag on the ambitious plan is some $325 million.
Some locals are riled up over the expansion’s potential effect on the city-owned Theodore Roosevelt Park, which surrounds the museum and would lose about a quarter of an acre to the new buildings. Opponents aren’t satisfied that the museum plans to tear down three existing buildings to make way for the expansion and minimize the impact on the park.
“She is a smart person, hopefully a nice person,” Goodman told DNAinfo, “and if we can just have a conversation, she can have a big voice.”