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Los Angeles Makes Bid for George Lucas Art Museum
Benjamin Sutton
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A third competitor has entered what was previously a two-horse race: Los Angeles’s mayor, Eric Garcetti, is hoping to lure George Lucas’s art museum, the Lucas Cultural Arts Museum, away from San Francisco and Chicago, which are both making pitches for the $1-billion institution. Following a recent conversation with the Star Wars director, Garcetti has launched a campaign—hash-tagged #WhyLucasInLA—to convince Lucas to build his $1-billion museum on a site currently occupied by the LA Sports Arena in Exposition Park, CBS LA reports.
“We’re the capital of entertainment and creativity of the world,” mayoral spokesperson Molly Fowler said, “so it felt totally natural for a museum focused on building storytellers to be built here in LA… Cultural institutions like this are a fantastic way for us to not only create jobs, but bring visitors into our city.”
A decision is expected from Lucas this summer. The Exposition Park site would put the Lucas museum near other attractions like the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the University of Southern California. While Lucas has long been based in the Bay Area, and his wife recently relocated to Chicago, Los Angeles seems an equally logical choice for being the capital of the US film industry, which owes much of its growth from the past 40 years to Lucas’s films.
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