Southwest Museum’s Decision to Move Is Blasted by Alatorre

City Councilman Richard Alatorre accused the board of the struggling Southwest Museum on Wednesday of being “a very close-knit group” that treats the museum as “their personal property” in pushing ahead with a plan to vacate its landmark Mt. Washington home.

Meanwhile, the museum’s director said a seismic engineering study of the Southwest’s dilapidated building confirmed that a reinforced concrete tower where most of its collection is stored has structural flaws that could risk the destruction of thousands of priceless artifacts in an earthquake. The study was done in 1987, however museum officials say it is further proof that they need to move.

Alatorre’s comments came in the wake of a decision by the museum, disclosed Friday, to solicit proposals for a new site.

The museum houses one of the nation’s best collections of American Indian art and artifacts, but museum officials have said that the facility is in need of $2 million in deferred maintenance projects--including replacement of a primitive elevator that carries visitors to the hillside museum from the street below.

In an announcement Monday, the museum said it has “nothing specific in terms of time or place” for the move, “but decisions will be made relatively soon.”

Alatorre, whose district includes the museum and who has been deeply involved in museum affairs since 1987, was sharply critical of the abrupt decision by the museum board, which he said had been made without consulting community groups.

He said the museum decision appeared to ignore details of a pending master plan for northeast Los Angeles in which the Southwest Museum has been identified as the “cultural anchor” of the Mt. Washington-Highland Park area. Alatorre said plans for a light-rail line connecting Pasadena and downtown Los Angeles call for a station to be located in Highland Park near the museum. The museum has long suffered from an acute parking shortage and lack of freeway access.

Alatorre complained that the museum, which initiated imaginative programs under its previous director, Patrick Houlihan, has lost its momentum. Houlihan left in a dispute with the board over the pace of the rejuvenation in 1987.

“I think it’s stagnant, at best,” Alatorre said.

“The real question is what have they done to outreach into the community and I say that they’ve done nothing,” he charged.

However, Alatorre ruled out the prospect of a city takeover of the museum facility or of financial assistance.

Sources familiar with the museum said it faces an operating loss.

Museum Director Jerome Selmer said the museum does not have an up-to-date financial statement because it is in the process of changing the basis of its fiscal year. The museum has a 1990 budget of $1.3 million, he said.

In response to Alatorre’s comments, Selmer said he and a member of the museum board had “discussed the entire situation” with the councilman before public disclosure of plans for the museum’s future.

Selmer said he did not know how to interpret Alatorre’s statement that the museum had lost its momentum.

“Our membership is at an all-time high. Our attendance is at an all-time high. . . . All of these things are going on continually,” Selmer said. “That’s not something I’d call stagnant.”

In an earlier interview, Selmer said the Southwest Museum retained a seismic engineer after the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake caused damage to some pottery in its collection. Sources said employees inside the building when the quake struck observed that the tower--the Italianate museum’s most familiar architectural feature to motorists on the nearby Pasadena Freeway--had begun to separate from the main building. The tower was added after the main building was completed in 1914.

The entire structure, Selmer said, is formed of massive, heavily reinforced concrete but the structural connection of the tower to the main building is primitive and comparatively weak.

The engineering study found the entire structure safe for occupancy, Selmer said.

However, he said that limited space in the tower--which is used mainly for collection storage--means that artifacts could be tossed around violently in a temblor, with the potential for massive damage to irreplaceable materials.

“Although the present building and location have aesthetic and historic value,” a museum announcement said, “the physical plant does not constitute the museum.”

The museum has some unreinforced brick interior walls, which made it subject to earthquake safety inspection laws passed after the 1987 temblor. However, the city Department of Building and Safety said it was not required to inspect the museum because of the private engineering study.