Chelsea Art Museum facing financial crisis

NEW YORK, Jan. 20 (UPI) -- The Chelsea Art Museum in New York is mired in a financial crisis and may soon be forced to close its doors for good, it was reported Sunday.

The New York Post reported that after a deal to sell the museum's air rights failed, the artistic institution became embroiled in a financial crisis that it facing foreclosure.

The museum's problems began in 2006 when its founder, Dorothea Keeser, agreed to a deal that would sell 40,000 square feet of the museum's air rights, the rights to the empty space above a property, to a developer.

Keeser had planned to use part of the $8.5 million she hoped to reap from the air-rights sale to pay the site's mortgage and to create an endowment through the museum.

But that deal fell apart after developer Alf Naman was a repeated no-show to scheduled closing dates and then announced he could come up with the money.

With the museum facing a lawsuit from Naman and bills piling up, the site that enjoys 100,000 visitors annually may soon be forced to close.

"We are in an extended crisis," Keeser told the Post. "I got into a trap."