The former chief executive of PaineWebber has proposed an Italian-American Museum for the very handsome but dilapidated Pier 1 at the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan. His proposal is one of four recently submitted to the Battery Park City Authority, which controls the 124-year-old pier that formerly was home to the city's fireboats.

The city already has an Italian-American Museum that opened two years ago on Mulberry Street, according to an article by Patrick McGeehan in yesterday's edition of The New York Times, adding that what Joseph J. Grano Jr. has in mind for the pier "is a celebration, not just of Italian ingenuity and flair, but also of all elements of la dolce vita."

"For starters, envisions an entrance flanked by a Roman chariot and a Ferrari 'to show the progress,' he said," the article noted.

"Anybody who attends the Metropolitan Opera or Fashion Week or shops at Eataly, the new temple of pasta and prosciutto near Madison Square, may think that all due respect is being paid to Italians and their contributions. But he or she has not met Joseph J. Grano Jr.," the article said.

"Almost every ethnic group, from the Greeks to the Jews to the Irish, all have museums," Mr. Grano, a third-generation Italian-American, said. "It's about time that Italian-Americans memorialized their culture so that succeeding generations can understand their contributions to society."

Mr. Grano, the article continued, "enlisted in the Army in 1967, fought with Special Forces in Vietnam and received a Bronze Star for valor. He rose on Wall Street from stock broker to chief executive of PaineWebber, then got out in 2004 while the getting was, oh, so good. For his next act, he helped bankroll a musical composed by his friend Bob Gaudio, which became 'Jersey Boys,' a phenomenal success that has been staged in more than 40 cities. He raised more than $200,000 for President George W. Bush's re-election campaign.

Mr. Grano's proposal, the article said, "also calls for an amphitheater for presentations to visiting students. And for the grown-ups, a private room on the second floor of the pier facing the Statue of Liberty could be used for wine tastings and private functions. He said he had an agreement with Arthur Imperatore, who operates the New York Waterway ferries, to run harbor tours from a dock alongside the pier."

His proposal would cost about $25 million and Mr. Grano told The Times he "had lined up several prominent people who were willing to contribute as much as $1 million each."

The authority plans to make a choice by early next year.

Mr. Grano "has access to another level of significance than I do," said Joseph V. Scelsa, the founder and president of the Italian-American Museum in Little Italy, who, the article said, is familiar with Mr. Grano's fund-raising prowess because they collaborated in the late 1990s to come up with the money for an exhibition at the New-York Historical Society, "The Italians of New York: Five Centuries of Struggle and Achievement."

Mr. Scelsa's museum on Mulberry Street grew out of that exhibition and is open to the public only on weekends. The article said that Mr. Scelsa does not see Mr. Grano's plan as competitive: "we're pretty much simpatico."