Empire State Building won't host National Cartoon Museum

STAMFORD, Conn. --Plans for a National Cartoon Museum at the Empire State Building have fallen through, with owners of the landmark Manhattan skyscraper saying the project was taking too long to develop.

Led by "Beetle Bailey" creator Mort Walker, organizers of the museum had planned to open it next year on the first three floors of the building with 200,000 historic pieces, including the first drawings of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse, original "Dick Tracy" comic strips, comic books, toys, film, CDs and DVDs.

Peter Malkin, a real estate magnate from Greenwich who is chairman of the group that owns the Empire State Building, said he supported the museum, but was forced to put the space back on the market because construction had not begun. He said the space for the museum had been saved, rent-free, for over a year.

"We had signed a lease, and under the lease they were supposed to go in and create the space for the museum and do work by a certain date," Malkin told The Advocate of Stamford. "They were not able to proceed with that, and we extended the date several times.

"But it was necessary finally to terminate the arrangement because they had not been able to proceed with their program," he said. "We're disappointed that it has not worked out as Mort had and we had hoped, but we just have to go forward with a more traditional, commercial use of the space."

Walker, whose studio is in Stamford, disputed Malkin's version of what happened.

"They changed the deal on us," Walker said last week. "They were going to sell our tickets when they sold tickets to the observation tower. We were going to split the ticket sales. They turned around and said they couldn't do it. They put our rent at $650,000. We found that too difficult, so our lease was canceled."

Walker added Wednesday, "It's a big disappointment. I really felt like we had a perfect situation."

Organizers of the museum had hoped to pull in 700,000 of the 3.5 million people who visit the Empire State Building's observatory every year. He said the original deal called for the museum to get the space rent-free in return for half the ticket sale proceeds, estimated at $7 million.

The museum's collection of cartoon art, which Walker says is one of the largest in the world, remains in a warehouse in Stamford.

It first opened in 1974 in Greenwich as the International Museum of Cartoon Art. It later moved to New York and Florida before it closed in 2002 due to financial troubles.

Walker said he is looking at other locations in New York City for the museum. He said he is discouraged, but is not giving up.

"We know we've got something good here. It's just a matter of working it out," he said.