The Nation - News from Sept. 28, 1987

The Smithsonian Institution’s newest national museums, the ninth and 10th to be constructed on the National Mall, were to be opened in a ribbon-cutting ceremony today, officials said. The festivities inaugurate the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the National Museum of African Art, along with the S. Dillon Ripley Center and the 360,000-square-foot, $73.2-million underground structure that houses them. The building fills a hole 60 feet deep and is large enough to hold three Lincoln Memorials. The party will be held on the structure’s landscaped roof, site of the new $3-million Enid A. Haupt Garden. Only one potential building site remains on the Mall, between the Botanical Gardens and the Air and Space Museum.