http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local...ep_Barnes.html

In a nutshell, because City Council can not get its act together over opening up the spot on the Parkway, it keeps giving Mont Co time to offer up new deals. Eventually a sweet enough deal is going to come along and they are going to take it to remain.

Someone needs to step up to the plate.

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Czar of the 26th Ward.

Maybe Lower Merion residents will STFU when it comes to complaining about the Barnes, considering how much the Barnes wanted to leave and be done with Lower Merion township.

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WHYY pays their CEO $750,000 a year. So WHYY should I renew my membership? Seems they have no problems finding money and spending it unwisely.


And this is why you should donate to PACCA, not PETA:

In September, PETA made headlines in Vermont and across the nation for asking Ben & Jerry's ice cream to use human breast milk in their ice cream, instead of cow milk

Montgomery County can do the deal as they propose and save the taxpayers money? Why not explore the possibility? It may save the City and Commonwealth a whole lot of money.

From the article:

Why? Why authorize that kind of money for a project that has yet to get off the ground? Why when the city has no idea where the present tenant is going?

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I knew my parents hated me. My bath toys were a radio and a toaster!-Rodney Dangerfield

This just goes to show you how awful Blackwell is. She is willing to risk a major impovement for the city over her pitiful little political concerns. I wish to god we could get her out of council. Why doesn't one of the outgoing Councilmen step up to the plate and just introduce the necessary zoning amendment. Or maybe Kenney, if you read this Jim, could do the same. The money this will bring the city in tourism dollars would be huge, to big to waste because of some backward a-hole council person.

This flatly misrepresents the truth of the situation. The city has already acquired the land, cleared it, done preliminary surveying for the new YSC - it was done with all that stuff back in 2004. There is money for construction and preliminary architectural plans. The only thing holding it up is that Blackwell wants to make sure she gets enough political payback before she introduces the bill to change the zoning. I quoted a PW article from 2004 where everything was basically in place with approval from DHS and the mayor's office.

Did you read the other thread?

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A song that says it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqITJFGyq4s

I understand and to a certain extent respect the argument that if Barnes himself wanted his collection to stay in Lower Merion than his wishes should be respected but looked at as an economic issue - if you live anywhere in the state of PA not just Philly - moving the Barnes is an excellent move for the state. The Barnes at its current location attracts a steady stream of regional visitors and a handful of national visitors. You need to get tickets several weeks to several months in advance depending on the time of year to visit the Barnes currently. In the city the number of visitors annually would increase by a factor of 10 or more. It would become an international, not just regional tourist attraction. Its like the Dali show times 4 - all year round, 7 days a week, for the next 20-40 years. The bulk of the money for the new Barnes would come from private charities in any case so the tax-payer investment compared to total potential payoff is minor and noone ever had to check in to a 12-step program for addiction to staring at Cezanne's.

Basically I think based solely on the long term economics if you live anywhere in the state of Pennsylvania outside Lower Merion Township moving the Barnes in walking distance to the PMA and the Rodin Museum is a lasting and wining investment in the state's tourist industry.

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A song that says it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqITJFGyq4s

If Blackwell is being such an A**, why not just pick a new site? For god's sake, the city is crumbling all around us. Surely there is a parcel of land elsewhere that can accomodate the facility that needs to move.

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NUTTER 2007

My thoughts exactly. If someone else cuts a credible sounding deal to turn one of their old industrial sites into an alternative YSC site at the very least it shows Blackwell that she can't use it as her political "ace in her sleeve" forever. I seriously believe nothing short of that (except possibly a death or two at the current YSC that can be blamed on the decrepit building) will motivate Blackwell to finally cut a deal. Since 2004 she has used it as her trump card against anything Street proposed that she strongly opposed - the reorganization of the RDA, privitzation of our waste water treatment facility, a brand new high school for her district that was where Vallas and the mayor wanted it - not where she wanted it to be. Can you imagine how many things she is going to oppose Nutter on?

Again her comments here indicate to me that there she feels no hesitation to just adding more and more to the laundry list for the YSC and would prefer to stretch out the negotiation indefinitely.

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A song that says it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqITJFGyq4s

You mean to tell me that she is the reason the new George Washington Carver High School of Science remains unbuilt?

Eccch. I was all prepared to say that some of the things the Bulletin article reports she is asking for sound reasonable enough until I read this, which if true makes it clear that all of that stuff is merely a smokescreen for her desire to maintain a chokehold on her turf.

Moving back to the topic of this thread:

While I realize that Lower Merion Township more or less brought the current situation on itself with the neighbors' obstinate refusal to consider any option that might have allowed the Barnes to accommodate more visitors where it is now, the Barnes board at the time didn't help things any when its director played the race card in fighting the neighbors.

Nonetheless, the Barnes really does belong in Merion. Why? It's not just an art museum. It's a school, first and foremost, created and designed to teach an admittedly eccentric but nonetheless coherent theory of art that apparently still has value, for otherwise, no one would enroll in the Barnes Foundation's art classes. Everything about the current Barnes, from the landscaping of the grounds to the design of the gallery and the arrangement of the objects in it, is set up to illustrate this theory.

I am aware that many of the provisions in Dr. Barnes' will stem in part from his pique with the Philadelphia Establishment, and that some of them were--and are--needlessly restrictive; I agree with most of the moves that sought to open up access to the gallery to more visitors. I draw the line at the move being taken now, however, for the reason above. Besides, I see very little evidence that the people who are engineering this move appreciate -- or even understand -- the Barnes' educational function; at best, in their vision, it would take a distant back seat to its new function as tourist magnet.

What should be done, if it hasn't been done already, is setting up guided or self-guided tours that explain the Barnes theory along with describing the paintings. I still remember an article Ed Sozanski wrote in the Inquirer around the time the paintings went on tour to raise money for the building's renovation that explained Barnes' theory quite well, in language anyone could understand, so this is not a difficult task. Then some of the money being devoted to moving what's currently on display to the Parkway should instead be devoted to the following:

--Construction of a facility near the current Barnes site that would allow for more visitor parking there. This was one of the big bones of contention with the neighbors, but with Episcopal Academy soon to relocate and St. Joe's taking over its site, I'm sure something could be arranged among the Barnes, St. Joe's and Lower Merion Township that would provide the needed parking without funneling traffic onto Latches Lane, the neighbors' chief concern all along.

--Construction of a facility on the Parkway that would house objects in Barnes' collection that are currently not on public display anywhere. As I'm sure some of you know, the Barnes Foundation also controls a Chester County farm, Ker-Feal, that contains another trove of paintings and decorative objects. None of these are accessible for viewing by either the public or Barnes students. Some of them are valuable and outstanding works in their own right. Why not put them on public display?

Like Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and New York's Frick Collection, the Barnes Foundation is the product of a singular and unorthodox vision. In the pursuit of tourist dollars, we are trashing that vision. For all the Establishment may have returned Barnes' contempt for it, I don't think it deserves to enjoy this form of revenge.

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Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
"Jazz and blogging are both intimate, improvisational, and individual -- but also inherently collective. And the audience talks over both." --Andrew Sullivan, "Why I Blog," The Atlantic, November 2008

is coming to the Parkway. The delay on the YSC relocation will in no way delay the Barnes Foundation's demolition of the YSC or the construction of an exciting new venue for this extraordinary collection.

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www.jameskenney.com

www.311forphilly.com