Letters to the Editor: Relocating priceless Getty collections to downtown would not necessarily ensure their safety

Yahoo

17-03-2025

To the editor: Before encouraging the Getty Center and Getty Villa to move holdings to the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration in downtown Los Angeles, it would be wise to remember the fire that hit the Central Library in 1986 ("Fire could have destroyed the Getty's irreplaceable art. Should the museum move?" March 13). Per the library website, "400,000 volumes — 20% of the library's holdings — were destroyed, with significant water and smoke damage done to the surviving works.'
No one knows how the fire started, but the result was closure of the library for seven years. It will take a lot of study to determine just how fire-safe a structure built in 1960 actually is or can be made to be. As art critic Christopher Knight writes, the possibility of moving the Getty collection, and, in my opinion, the collection at the Skirball Cultural Center that abuts the same wildfire-prone area, should be considered, but that consideration shouldn't turn on the availability of a particular building.
Stephanie Scher, Pasadena
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To the editor: I take exception to Knight's view on several counts. First, there is no safer place to house these collections than where they are sitting today. To rebuild these locations would be prohibitive, even for the Getty Trust. Second, the two locations themselves are works of art and, in my opinion, are irreplaceable. Finally, the county hall site could be repurposed into homeless and low-income housing for a fraction of the cost of a new museum and be a better memorial to the late mayor and county supervisor James Hahn.
Kevin Minihan, Westchester
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To the editor: I like Knight's idea to relocate the Getty collection downtown in the Hahn building next to Grand Park. That structure is steps away from the Civic Center Metro stop, which I already use when I go to the Music Center.
Don Shirley, Sherman Oaks
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To the editor: The commentary on whether the Getty's buildings should move was a waste of Knight's long years of experience and practiced eye for art, neither of which were needed for that off-the-wall piece of blue-sky speculation.
Patrick Frank, Venice
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To the editor: Both museums have incredible abilities to survive the fires that scarred our city. The vision of the villa to be above the ocean, as was the original villa near Pompeii, would be totally ruined. Instead, this critic should be lauding the beacons both museums provide. One stands bravely for the reestablishment of a community around it. The other encourages all of L.A. that such a resource exists.
Elaine Sarnoff, Manhattan Beach
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To the editor: Let's move Los Angeles. Instead of having to deal with wildfires, earthquakes and urban unrest, moving our fair city to a spot where nothing much happens — Inyo County comes to mind — might achieve the goal of erasing every last bit of uncertainty in life and allowing us to never again have to worry that Thracian artifacts are endangered.
Jeff Schultz, Los Angeles
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.