to present African American and Latino artworks in their exhibitions and permanent collections. Director Gerard C. Wertkin announced American folk art's common heritage as “promoting an appreciation of diversity in a way that does not foster ethnic chauvinism or racial division.” The museum further established its broadened outlook with the 1998 formation of the Contemporary Center, a division of the museum devoted to the work of 20th and 21st century self-taught artists, as well as non-American artworks in the tradition of European art brut. In 2001, the museum opened the Henry Darger Study Center to house 24 of the self-taught artist's works, as well as a collection of his books, tracings, drawings, and source materials. In 2001, the museum chose its current name, American Folk Art Museum. Recognizing that American folk art could only be fully understood in an international context, the word American functions as an indication of the museum's location, emphasis, and principal patronage rather than as a limitation on the kind of art it collects, interprets, or presents. The museum's current programming reflects this shift in focus. Past exhibits have included folk arts of Latin America, England, Norway, among other countries and continents. As the museum's mission developed, so did its effort to establish a permanent home. In 1979, the Museum's Board of Trustees purchased two townhouses on West 53rd Street, adjacent to Museum's rented quarters at 49 West 53rd Street. In 1984, while waiting to develop the West 53rd properties, the museum continued to organize exhibitions and educational programs from a former carriage house at 125 West 55th Street. Five years later, a new branch of the museum, the Eva and Morris Feld Gallery, opened at 2 Lincoln Square, New York, opposite Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. In 2001, a new building on 45–47 West 53rd Street was opened. Tod Williams and Billie Tsien designed an eight-level building on a forty-foot-wide, one hundred-foot-long site on 53rd Street. From 2001 to 2011, the midtown space served as the museum's main branch. However, facing increasingly high bond payments, the museum sold the midtown branch to the Museum of Modern Art. When MoMA announced that it was going to demolish the building in connection with its expansion, there was outcry and considerable discussion about the issue, but the museum ultimately proceeded with its original plans. Following the sale, the American Folk Art Museum used its facility at 2