L.A.’s Megahit Museums

Two spectacular new museums opened in Los Angeles within the past six months and each is a blockbuster hit. The Getty Center in Brentwood and the whiz-bang California Science Center in Exposition Park could not be more different. Yet their common success presents similar challenges: Sometimes even free admission has a price.

Los Angeles was hardly without big cultural draws before the Getty and the Science Center came along. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, for example, has a history of standout exhibits, including “The Treasures of Tutankhamen” in 1978. But some of the city’s old standbys, like the Los Angeles Children’s Museum, have become worn, neglected places. So it’s not surprising that the opening of Los Angeles’ two newest museums spurred enormous demand. The free admission policy at each (with a $5 parking charge) is a lure, but attendance has far exceeded even the most optimistic predictions. More than 700,000 visitors have toured the Science Center since it opened in February and nearly 800,000 have visited the Getty Center since it opened its doors in December.

Good riddance to that stereotype of Angelenos with no appetite for culture or learning. Hello to creative crowd management. At the Getty, not enough restrooms, and snaking lines for galleries, food, even drinking fountains, have made the hilltop center less than a serene experience. At the Science Center, families and huge school groups have pushed noise in the packed exhibit halls to deafening levels.

But the staff at each institution is responding and, wisely, not retreating from their free entry policies. The Getty Center has begun an ad campaign to discourage visitors without advance reservations. Parking at the center is by reservation only, but visitors who arrive by public bus or taxi don’t need one. Meanwhile, more restrooms are on the drawing board.

Science Center staffers are taking a page from the Getty. They will give priority to school groups with advance reservations, cap the number of visitors in the exhibit halls and are adding employees and volunteers. The additional technicians should be able to keep the museum’s hands-on exhibits in better repair. These are happy problems for the city to have, and happily they can be solved.