Local News in Brief : Children’s Museum Gets Big Rent Cut

The Children’s Museum, which caters its exhibits to the under-12 crowd, has gotten a boost from the Los Angeles City Council, which voted to reduce its rent from about $30,000 to $1 a year.

The downtown museum, which charges $4 admission, attracted 275,000 visitors last year, nearly 200,000 of them children, Director Gil Leaf said. The private nonprofit museum, which has an annual operating budget of $1.6 million, has been open since 1979 in the Los Angeles Mall across from City Hall. It has 18 permanent exhibits and offers special programs that cater to groups of schoolchildren on field trips.