The Pew and Annenburg trusts are completely committed. So long as the Barnes can come up with the rest of the funding, and the city gets the Youth Study Center moved, it won't matter how much the whole thing costs, as no one who is committed to moving the project forward is looking to make any money off it.

Ultimately, getting the Barnes onto the Parkway will be a huge coupe for the city. It will be something that will still have great importance in 100 years. I can't even begin to state how important those paintings are; it's not just another collection of art. It's one of the greatest collections of Post-Impressionists in existence (better than MOMA, on par with the Orsay in Paris or the Hermitage), and very few have had the chance to see it.

I understand the impulse to expand the Convention Center, but I don't see why it had to be done right now. We should have waited another 5 years, until the convention and travel markets had completely recovered from 11 Sept.

Terrific post Simon. I just want to stress the importance of having Pew and Annenberg as backers for this project...they're local foundations with great prestige and equally impressive track records. Just in case naysayers were wondering, that is.

I'm almost positive the Youth Study Center has been approved to be relocated, so there's some hope.

Now, where's our Calder Museum?!!?

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“Man who run in front of car get tired.”

At the ACC presentation today, it was mentioned that they would be having a museum..... I kind of wondered whether they could be trying to make something happen with Calder.