Trenton, Already Beleaguered, Loses a Vase It Holds Dear Michae Mancuso/The Times of Trenton Richard Willinger of the Trenton Museum Society removing a case surrounding a vase made by one of Trenton's most successful companies. The vase was returned on Tuesday to its owner. These have been among the worst of times for Trenton, a once-proud industrial city that has struggled with grim finances, large-scale layoffs and rising crime. Now comes the latest indignity: The Brooklyn Museum demanded the return of its vase. The 4-foot-7-inch porcelain vase was a source of local pride. It dated from Trenton's heyday. It was designed by a ceramic artist who had forsaken London for Trenton. It was made by one of Trenton's most successful companies, which also made the country's first one-piece solid porcelain lavatory. The vase was sent off to the 1904 World's Fair. The Brooklyn Museum sent it to Trenton in 1997 on loan to the Trenton City Museum. Robert Cunningham, the president of the Trenton Museum Society, said its departure began last month with a telephone call from someone at the Brooklyn Museum. "They indicated they had heard the director of the museum was laid off for budgetary reasons and there was no one there and they were worried about their vase," he said Wednesday. "I said, "There's a full-time person from the city there, not the director but a full-time person; the museum is open six days a week; we, the volunteer museum society, are in there all the time; we have two people we employ; there's security; and things are basically the same." He said the next communication from Brooklyn was an e-mail saying the vase could not stay in Trenton. It did not seem to matter that Mr. Cunningham's society had already spent $19,000 to buy one of three other similar vases or that it was planning to borrow the other two and exhibit all four. Barry Harwood, the curator of decorative arts at the Brooklyn Museum, said the Trenton museum's financial problems or its safety in Trenton were not the main reasons he wanted the vase returned. "But in all honesty," he said, "the economic crisis fueled our desire to have it come back." He said the vase - impressive for its size and scale but stylistically "a rather old-fashioned and conservative object" - had been in storage when the Trenton museum asked to borrow it in 1997. "It's been there a very, very long time," he said. I had been thinking about bringing it back, so the decision to bring it back was independent and prior to their economic crisis. He said it was picked up on Tuesday. "We will put it out on view," he said. Exactly when, I don't know.