ALTERNATIVE PLANS FOR THE SOUTHWEST MUSEUM/GRIFFITH PARK EXPANSION PLANS (Did Council Run It Through Parks & Rec/NC?)

ALTERNATIVE PLANS FOR THE SOUTHWEST MUSEUM
FriendsOfTheSouthwestMuseum.com

Y'all know the Autry's, Autry National Center, owners of the Southwest Museum and Casinos.

Just kidding about the casino part, so far. But the SW Museum Board/Corp merged with the Autry's who own the Griffith Park area. Three board members of SW Museum were put on the Autry board, which Zuma Dogg can understand why they would make that merger.

Now here's what the Autry's and Tom LeBong want to do (in collaboration with Jose Huziar?) I was looking at the ethics web site...MAN, does that Jackie Autry like Tom!

First of all, you double the square footage at Griffith Park. That way you can spend $150 million developing it. LaBong wants to turn it into a virtual amusement park. THEN, you take all the artwork and artifacts out of the Southwest Museum and move it into the new Griffith Park museum. (Some folks say that would put an end to this City's first museum, and slam the door on history.) But besides that...

ONE PROBLEM, Y'ALL...LaBong's Griffith Park is sitting on leased land, y'all, under a 1985 lease, saying any expansion over 5000 feet, needs permission granted by recreations and parks.

The pueblos call on our Mayor, Antonio Villarigosa to DELIVER on his campaign promise, that he would make the Autry's live up to the merger agreement protecting the Southwest Museum.

ZAP's SW Museum investigator says, "They have a vauge plan for the old Southwest Museum site, but it's a breach of the merger agreement." [LIKE THEY CARE!?!?] It says: All operations of SW Museum shall reamain at Mt. Washington site, unless a complete "master plan" of the Autry's says otherwise. They didn't say otherwise, y'all!!!

Viagraosa wants to turn the SW Museum into the Southwest Museum Education and Culture Center for Native Americans. [Yeah mayor, get the word, "native american" in there to pave the way for a title change to "Education Culture Center and Casino...LOL!]

Oh no...Griffith Park has John Gray. And ZD hears Latham & Watikins will raise money for Tony 4 Governor if he jams through this Griffith Park Expansion $150 million expenditure and will even get George Millstien all up in the hizzy. Ya feel me, dough?

I like a casiino better than an education center. We got waaaaaay more schools than casinos.

One of the most concise press articles about the controversy over Autry's mishandling of the Southwest Museum is from summer 2005. Here's an excerpt:

Title: Gene Autry vs. Southwest Museum: Piracy or preservation?
Date: 2005-08-18
Author: Robert Greene
Source: LA Weekly

Autry retained legal powerhouse Latham & Watkins, and the coalition responding with its own land-use attorney.

The local community paper warning that the Southwest was being looted. [Click "READ MORE" to hear how Villaraigosa, Huizar and Reyes promised to FIGHT this!]

And the politicians weighed in. Villaraigosa, while still on the council, told coalition members that when he was elected mayor, he planned to “yank their chain,” referring to the Autry. Councilman Ed Reyes, whose district includes the Casa de Adobe, warned that he would not allow the “cultural piracy” of the neighborhood.

“There’s this perception that only downtown Los Angeles can have museums,” complained José Huizar, who promised to block the institution’s operators — the Autry National Center — from moving a century’s accumulation of Native American baskets, arrowheads, kachinas (and, it must be admitted, human bones) from the Mount Washington tower to the modern and airy Autry facility in Griffith Park, or any new annex that might be constructed there.

“I join [City Councilman] Ed Reyes in saying that this is cultural piracy!” Huizar added.

Huizar is only one of several candidates and elected officials who have promised to block any building permits for new Autry construction in Griffith Park, where a display and storage facility for the Southwest collection is to go.

In some ways, it’s a battle for possession of the city’s cultural heritage.

For decades, cultural Los Angeles has run east-west, from MOCA and the Music Center to LACMA and the Getty. Museum-support dollars — and campaign contributions — flowed downtown from the estates of Brentwood and Beverly Hills. The blue bloods of Pasadena also sent their bucks downtown and to the Miracle Mile and the Westside, but the historic arts and cultural institutions of the Arroyo Seco languished.

Between the lines of the argument come layers of ethnic politics and social complexity.

“The cultural legacy of Los Angeles is about to be lost,” Possert claims. “If the city does not understand that our first museum is about to be replaced by something six miles upstream for no reason, what are we saying about our history? Our culture?”

The new institution founded by singing cowboy and movie star Gene Autry got a sweet deal from the city — virtually free land in Griffith Park, arguably in violation of the city charter. And the displays emphasized the American pop-culture image of the West — The museum, renamed the Autry National Center, is currently featuring the spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone.

Let’s face it, the place is a lot of fun. But the pop-culture emphasis is a rather shocking counterpoint to the anthropological collections at the Southwest.

Eliot Sekuler said he is counting on city officials to block any new Griffith Park building permit for the Autry unless the Southwest retains its role as the home of at least part of the Native American collection for which the museum is known.