Villaraigosa and Huizar Renege on Promises to Protect the Southwest Museum (tags)
"Obviously, the Mayor and Council Member Huizar are together with the Autry. My personal opinion is that politics; money; and lobbying, that Autry pays very highly for, have trumped the will of the people of Highland Park and Northeast L.A." -- Nicole Possert, co-chair, Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition
Update on the Southwest Museum (report and photos) (tags)
Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition recently presented three alternative plans for preserving the facility as a complete museum with additional uses. The Autry National Center, which owns the property, wants to change its use to a cultural center and scale down the exhibition of the Southwest Museum Collection to just a fraction of space, with much of the collection relocated to a yet-to-be-built building in Griffith Park. Among the new features proposed by the Coalition are a scenic restaurant that is being likened to Castaways in Burbank, expanded parking, new space for exhibition of the collection, and a cultural and education center. Council person Huizar said he would oppose Autry’s plan to downsize the original museum.
Public Forum on the Southwest Museum (article and transcript) (tags)
On July 1st, The Southwest Museum closed. The Autry National Center, which owns it, claims the future of the museum is secure, while Friends of the Southwest Museum is concerned about the lack of a concrete plan and whether or not relocating parts of the museum to Griffith Park is necessarily the best scenario. The lack of a tangible plan as well as a claimed scarcity of public input has fueled suspicion by the Coalition as to the owner’s true motive.