staff and its Scientific Advisory Board continued in anticipation of legislative relief.
Meanwhile, and in fact all through the period of agitation and disappointment in the attempt to secure a new building, energetic efforts were underway to make conditions more tolerable in the "old, unsightly, and overcrowded" building which still housed the Institute and the Museum, along with the Library. Once more, there was a general shuffling and rearrangement of offices, laboratories, file and record rooms, and other spaces, so as to bring related activities closer together in the four stories and basement of the building without an elevator.
In part, this rearrangement was made possible by the fact that in August 1946 the Institute had secured from the Public Buildings Administration the use of Chase Hall (fig. 85), across Independence Avenue from its location. Chase Hall was a temporary building which had been used during the war as the barracks of the SPAR's, the women's Reserve contingent of the U.S. Coast Guard. It was allocated for Museum use upon the condition that the Museum materials which had been given wartime storage in the National Guard armory warehouse on the waterfront be removed without delay — which meant that the Museum had to begin moving in before the necessary alterations were completed, with the result that much of the material had to be moved more than once, and some exhibits had to be shifted about as many as five times, as the task of rearrangement proceeded (fig. 86).
On 7 May 1947, the Museum, or rather some parts of it, was opened to the public in its new location at the former SPAR barracks (fig. 87). On the first day, the Museum received 137 visitors, and by the end of the month of May, it had been visited by more than 8,500 persons, indicating that the institution had not lost its hold on the public interest. 17[1]
Additional space was secured 18 months later in another somewhat dilapidated building located on Independence Avenue, Tampa Hall by name, the occupancy of which the Institute and Museum shared with other Government agencies. 18[2]
Scientific Advisory Board of the AFIP
In this period, also, the Scientific Advisory Board of the Army Institute of Pathology, appointed by The Surgeon General, held its first meeting on 3 March 1947. Dr. Balduin Lucké, back in civilian status as professor of pathology at
