But in Montgomery County there wasn't a hint of protest. It was as if a long fight over the Merion operations - in which there were suits and counter-suits amid charges of racism - had worn everyone out.
"If you had a 24-karat gold splinter stuck in your [backside], you would not be sorry to have it removed," Walter Herman, a Barnes neighbor on Latchs Lane, said in October 2003.
Now, in a complete turn-about, Herman and other neighbors have joined the Montgomery County commissioners and Lower Merion Township officials in a last-ditch effort to "save the Barnes" and block its move.
A suburban coalition threatened Thursday to pry the lid off the case and let out buried issues by filing yet another suit - this one to force the Barnes to consider a $50 million plan from the county to help the museum stay where it is.
Legal scholars and attorneys say at this late date it may be difficult to get Orphans Court Judge Stanley Ott to reopen the case.
"I would think it is low probability, but it has been such a crazy case for years that it can't be ruled out," said Bruce Mann, a Harvard University law professor who has followed the case.
The county believes it can force the case to be reexamined by showing Ott that the Barnes held a piece of vital information from him: that the state had put $100 million into its capital budget to help a move to Philadelphia.
That was in 2002, before the Barnes told Ott it was doing everything it could to stay in Merion. Attorney Mark Schwartz, hired by the county, said Thursday: "The question is if there were certain misrepresentations."
The state, to date, has given $25 million for the relocation.
