Decentralize Art

You have published numerous articles about the grand new Los Angeles County art museum to be built on the site of the present one, but I have yet to see any examination of the basic concept of a plan that concentrates the museum in a single Westside location.

Many schoolchildren in buses, and others in their automobiles, must travel for up to three hours round-trip to visit the museum. Our county is far-flung, and it seems to me that the cultural interests of residents in Claremont, Long Beach, Watts and Lancaster, to name a few of the locations of our county’s taxpayers, would be better served by a system of regional museums scattered about the county.

The county library, with its many branches, is an example of such a concept. Of course, the problems are different for art, but the British Museum and the system of art museums in New York City are proof that it can be done.

SAM PHILIPS

Tarzana