The Southwest Museum merged with the Autry National Center about three years ago. At the time of the merger, there was concern that the Autry management might attempt to move all of the Southwest Museum’s vast collection out of its hillside home on Mount Washington to the Autry’s home in Griffith Park. The Autry home is located on a flat area in the park, just off of I-5, and sharing a parking lot with the Los Angeles Zoo.
The Southwest Museum opened in its current location in 1913, making it the oldest museum in Los Angeles. One of its key founders, Charles Fletcher Lummis, lived at El Alisal, a stone structure just down the hill from the Southwest Museum on Avenue 43, two blocks from Figueroa Street and immediately adjacent to the 1940’s era Historic Arroyo Seco Parkway. Both Figueroa Street (1932-1934 and 1936-1940) and the Arroyo Seco Parkway (1940-1964) were a part of Route 66.
An additional property that belongs to the Southwest Museum that the Autry acquired in the merger is the Casa de Adobe. The Casa was built by several families of former California Rancheros in the 1920’s and donated to the Southwest Museum as an example of former California Ranchero lifestyle. This structure sits immediately on Figueroa Street, across from Sycamore Grove Park. In 2005, the National Park Service’s Route 66 Corridor Management Program appropriated some of its annual grant money to the Autry National Center to perform an historic structures report on the Casa de Adobe. The Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition, in conjunction with the California Historic Route 66 Association, the Route 66 Preservation Foundation, and 66 Productions were all instrumental in helping support this grant.
The Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition was formed three years ago to be a proactive group to aid the Autry National Center in what was believed to be its efforts in making the Southwest a viable destination. Since this time, the Autry has persisted with its non-committal stance about preserving Los Angeles' first museum as a museum. Professional, peer-reviewed studies have shown clearly that the museum is viable and the reports (by architect Bonnie Levin) outline the steps that can be taken to make it so, all very feasible with a budget like the Autry's. Autry, in representing this idea to the public, casts negative light on the idea, making it seem unfeasible. Both Levin’s report and the report of the Coalition’s Thomas Martin can be viewed on the Coalition’s website, http://www.friendsofthesouthwestmuseum.com/
In the early stages of the struggle, some of the current members of the Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition were involved in securing a stop on the Gold Line light rail for the Southwest Museum. The decision to add the stop was to help maintain and promote the viability of the Southwest Museum as a destination.
After three years of discussions between the Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition and the Autry National Center, the issue has finally and recently been sent to the Human Relations Commission within the City of Los Angeles. The Autry and the Coalition both agreed to an open and honest discussion of the future of the Southwest Museum, with the goal of the Coalition being the continued operation of the Southwest Museum in its current location as a museum. This discussion has led to the open public comment period on the Southwest Museum, which I am currently asking that each of you participate in by sending in your letters of support for the Southwest Museum. (The comment period officially closes on July 15.)
It is important to note, also, that current Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had stated prior to his election as mayor that he supported maintaining the Southwest Museum in its current location. Recently, however, he has maintained his silence regarding the issue. Furthermore, in 2003, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a resolution supporting the maintaining of the Southwest Museum.
Another interesting note is that the Autry National Center has made it public knowledge recently that it wishes to expand its facilities in Griffith Park. This expansion presumably includes the moving of the Southwest Museum’s collection – over 250,000 items, one of the largest such collections in the world – from its Southwest Museum home to the Autry campus in Griffith Park. Expansion in Griffith Park, however, would need to be approved by the Los Angeles City Council. That approval has not come as of yet since the plans are still “in development” by the Autry. The Autry National Center has stated (but not formalized) an interest in maintaining the structure of the Southwest Museum, but has not determined what its use will be. The Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition strongly believe that its primary use should be that of a museum, and that any additional uses (i.e. cultural center, meeting location, restaurant, etc.) should be secondary.
I encourage each and every one of you to send your letters of support to the following members of the Los Angeles City Council and to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, as well as to send copies to the Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition. All the addresses are listed below, as is a sample letter that you can use as your guide, and bullet-points with key information if you choose to compose your own letter. Note that the Southwest Museum is in Councilmember Huizar’s district, the Casa de Adobe is in Councilmember’s Reyes’ district, and the Autry National Center’s Griffith Park home is in Councilmember LaBonge’s district, so all of these Councilmen are affected.
Councilmember Jose Huizar – councilmember.huizar@lacity.org
200 N. Spring St., Room 425 LA, CA 90012
Councilmember Ed Reyes -- councilmember.reyes@lacity.org
200 N. Spring St., Room 410, LA, CA 90012
Councilmember Tom LaBonge -- labonge@lacity.org
200 N. Spring St., Room 480, LA, CA 90012
Human Relations Commission, Gary de la Rosa -- gary.delarosa@lacity.org
200 N. Spring St., Room 1625, LA, CA 90012
Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition -- swmcoalition@pacbell.net or 755 Crane Blvd., LA 90065
You can also sign an online comment form for the City of Los Angeles at:
http://www.friendsofthesouthwestmuseum.com/Public%20Input%20Form%20All-1.htm
And if you have not already done so, please sign the online petition located at:
http://www.friendsofthesouthwestmuseum.com/petition.html
Here are the promises made by our elected officials:
1. April 2005 - Just prior to his election as Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa appeared at a meeting of the Southwest Museum Coalition and hundreds of people heard him say that the Southwest Museum needs to stay in Mount Washington. He also said that in a few months he thought he would become mayor and that if so, he asserted: "Then I will have greater leverage and I am prepared to jerk Autry's chain."
2. April 2005 - Councilmember Ed Reyes came to the meeting of the Southwest Museum Coalition and objected to the Autry's press release declaring that the Southwest Museum would be moved from Mount Washington to Griffith Park. In speaking, Councilmember told the hundreds of people there and was widely quoted as saying: "This community will not tolerate Cultural Piracy!"
3. July 2005 - Mayor Villaraigosa reconfirmed before the Mount Washington Association's Ice Cream Social that the Southwest Museum should stay on Mount Washington.
4. November 2005 - Just prior to his election, Councilmember Jose Huizar sent a special mailing to Mount Washington voters. In that mailer, he cemented his lead over opponents by being the only candidate to promise that the Southwest Museum should remain on Mount Washington and open as a museum.
ARTICLE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES ABOUT THE SOUTHWEST MUSEUM
Gene Autry's Legacy and an Indian Museum Merge (and Collide)
New York Times
By EDWARD WYATT
Published: June 28, 2006
LOS ANGELES, June 22 — When one of the country's premier collections of American Indian artifacts joined forces three years ago with the collectibles of the Singing Cowboy, Gene Autry, the move was officially billed as a merger of equals.
This being Hollywood, however, the storyline was reduced to something simpler: the cowboys were once again battling the Indians. Guess which side won.
Instead of celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding next year, the Southwest Museum of the American Indian will lock its doors here on June 30. Over the next three years, the 240,000 objects in its collection, many of which have not been out of storage for decades, will be cleaned, cataloged and prepared for a move to a proposed new building next to Autry's Museum of the American West, in Griffith Park.
That is where the Autry National Center, as the merged museum complexes are now known, will celebrate another 100th anniversary next year: the Gene Autry Centennial, a birthday exhibition that, according to the museum, will explore "the Singing Cowboy's influence on myth and history in the American West."
For many residents of the neighborhoods surrounding the Southwest Museum, the museum's plans to move its collection smack of a bait-and-switch. From the time the merger was first discussed in 2001, both sides stressed that the Southwest Museum — whose identity is embedded in the landmark white adobe building that towers over the Arroyo Seco northeast of downtown — would remain separate and apart from the Autry.
"I grew up visiting the museum," said Ed P. Reyes, a Los Angeles city councilman whose district contains part of the Southwest Museum's grounds. "I don't want us to lose a cultural landmark that has had a tremendous impact on our community in terms of education and culture. I was always under the impression that they were not going to close it down."
Autry officials say there is no alternative. "We looked for a way to resurrect this campus as a museum," John L. Gray, the president and chief executive of the Autry National Center, said of the Southwest's location. "We couldn't figure out a way to make it work."
The dispute illustrates a continuing issue in the museum world. When cash-poor but collection-rich institutions are forced into partnerships with their opposites, often no one is left happy.
The Autry museum, opened in 1988 by the Autry family, was backed by a large fortune but had a collection that tended toward movie memorabilia and less distinguished Western paintings.
The Southwest, by contrast, suffered from a small endowment and declines in membership and visitors. But since its founding by Charles Lummis, an explorer and collector, it had built an extensive collection of Indian artifacts, including 13,500 Indian baskets, perhaps the largest such holding in existence, as well as thousands of objects, ranging from the sacred — including human remains — to the mundane.
Most of that collection is now being put into storage as the Southwest strives to deal with long-festering problems. Severe damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which caused the partial separation of the Southwest's tower from the main building, has never been repaired. Heavy rains last year resulted in extensive leaks, with water pouring into some of the museum's cramped storage spaces and damaging some displays. Insect infestations have threatened some artifacts, Southwest curators say.
To remedy the problems, all of the building's exhibition space must be given over to storage and restoration work, Autry officials say. They expect the work to take three years.
Mr. Gray stressed that the historic Southwest site, built by Mr. Lummis in 1914, was not being abandoned. A small, rotating exhibition featuring artifacts from the museum's collection is likely to be put in place once the conservation work is finished. But he said that the location must add other uses, both educational and commercial, to remain viable.
During the restoration, the building's gift shop and a lobby display about the project will be open on weekends. No artifacts from the collection will be on display, although tours of the conservation work will be available to museum members, and the museum's scholarly library will remain open by appointment.
Some neighborhood leaders say that plans to transfer the collection are unacceptable. "It needs some work, but everything is in place for the museum to be successful where it is," said Nicole Possert, co-chairwoman of the Friends of the Southwest Museum coalition, which characterizes itself as an IMBY group — one that wants new development "in my back yard."
"Look at the Disney Concert Hall," Ms. Possert said. "It changed how people viewed downtown and the communities near it. We're open to expansion of the Southwest Museum, as long as it is creatively done and looks good. We would trade that off in return for being able to have a real destination here."
Not everyone is opposed to the Autry's plans to move. Kathleen Whitaker, a former chief curator at the Southwest Museum who is now director of the Indian Arts Research Center at the School of American Research in Santa Fe, N.M., applauds the Autry's efforts.
"For those of us who grew up in Los Angeles, it's very disappointing that this very historic institution has suffered so much," Dr. Whitaker said. "But the Autry has in essence rescued a collection of national importance. The people in the neighborhood and the city of Los Angeles haven't offered any real viable support for keeping the museum open."
To build the new museum that it hopes will house the Southwest collection, the Autry National Center must get city approval to expand.
Councilman José Huizar, whose district includes the Southwest's main building, noted that the city had made accommodations to serve the Southwest Museum at its current site. For example, the city built a stop on the Gold Line light-rail service at the museum, partly because the hilltop site lacks enough parking.
"You don't abandon a site like this just because of parking issues," Mr. Huizar said.
The city has organized a series of public hearings on the museum's future. While Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa said during his election campaign last year that he wanted the Southwest to stay where it is, more recently he has not sided either way. The mayor's press office did not return four phone calls seeking comment on the issue.
Mr. Gray, a former banker who, with his cropped hair, rimless glasses and white shirt, could have played an Old West banker in one of Autry's cowboy films, admits that while he is a museum executive, he is not a curator or an expert on American Indian cultures.
"I'm a total dilettante," he said. "But when we came in, the museum didn't have enough money to pay its bills. It didn't have security guards. It didn't have conservators. It never had the public support that the collection warranted."
