n this short period, $6M has been raised in planning funds, leading to the awarding of parcel 12 for the Museum, a premier site across from the Faneuil Hall marketplace with its 20 million annual visitors, on the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

As we begin to expand our fundraising efforts to construct the building, it is worth noting a new era in Boston of greater prosperity and an increasing interest in new development, both culturally and commercially. This development has begun with Boston's first museum in a century, the ICA, an exciting successful building and institution, anchoring one end of the harbor crescent, near the end of the Greenway.

Massachusetts has already set aside $31M to be divided among the three institutions designated for the Greenway. The Boston Museum will be a nationally significant institution telling the story of America, lending to additional public support. Given our city's role in shaping our country, it deserves no less. We anticipate launching a capital campaign for the building enabling us to break ground in late 2010.

In the end, the subject is us.
The names of some of Boston's great philanthropists are well known for the institutions they founded: Henry Lee Higginson, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Joshua Bates. Some of the names are less publicly known, but you can find them prominently chiseled in the doorways of our distinguished and enduring institutions. And many of the names of those who gave to establish great institutions are hard to find except in one respect: their gifts, large and small, have become part of the fabric of the city of Boston.

This is the opportunity offered by the Boston Museum: to take part in establishing an institution that, ten years from now and a hundred years from now, will still be one of the vibrant and enriching voices in the cultural life of the city. Please join us in creating a new legacy - a major educational resource and a place to bring residents and visitors alike together around Boston's shaping of the American story.

Please support the Boston Museum by either: