WILL HOLLYWOOD FINALLY GET A MUSEUM?

A Hollywood museum — something that has been kicked around by industry moguls, local politicians, and cultural preservationists for decades — may finally see the light of day. After failing to raise the funds needed to construct a museum on Vine Street, blocks away from where the first full-length movie was shot in 1914 (The Squaw Man). The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Tuesday voted to locate the museum on the site of a former department store now owned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Wilshire Boulevard. AMPAS and LACMA said that they would work together to raise funds for renovating the 300,000 square-foot site and creating the exhibits of Hollywood memorabilia, including props, sets, costumes, photographic stills, etc. In a statement, Terry Semel, the former co-CEO of Warner Bros., who went on to head Yahoo! and is now the co-chairman of LACMA, said, “The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will provide a much-needed destination for cultural tourists and Los Angelenos to learn more about cinema, and the setting could not be more ideal, nestled next to the largest encyclopedic art museum in the Western United States.”