NEW YORK — Flemish tourism officials and Belgian-born designer Diane von Furstenberg launched a U.S. promotional campaign, “Via Antwerp,” to highlight a new museum in Antwerp that is devoted to the story of emigration to the U.S. a century ago.
Called the Red Star Line Museum, the facility is housed in buildings that once belonged to the Red Star Line, a Philadelphia-based shipping company that carried more than 2 million immigrants to New York and Philadelphia between 1873 and 1934. Irving Berlin, Albert Einstein and Golda Meir were among those passengers.
Set to open Sept. 28, the museum is effectively an Ellis Island counterpart in Europe.
At the “Via Antwerp” launch, Philip Heylen, the city’s vice mayor for culture and economy, said he was so taken with the Ellis Island Immigration Museum that he presented himself unannounced at the offices of the Ellis Island architects, Beyer Blinder Bell Architects & Planners.
When asked if he had an appointment, he said, “No, but I have a great idea.”
And so it happened that in the years that followed, the restoration of the Red Star Line warehouses was undertaken by the same firm behind the renovation of Ellis Island.
In those early days, he added, Diane von Furstenberg agreed to be godmother to the project.
The museum exhibits, according to a press announcement, will illustrate the phases of an emigrant’s journey, relying on evocative displays of memorabilia ad photos, plus multimedia techniques to convey authentic emigration stories.
The “Via Antwerp” theme highlights Antwerp as a port city, the gateway to Flanders in northern Belgium and beyond — and as well as an outbound gateway to the New World a century ago.
Campaign ads will appear in and around New York subway stations and at in online banners.
Visit Flanders said the goal is to increase the number of U.S. leisure travelers to Antwerp by 10% by the end of 2014 and also to attract 5,000 Americans to the new museum by the end of next year, for 5% of the total projected attendance for that time period.