Neighbors Grow Increasingly Intolerant of Museum of Tolerance
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LOS ANGELES — In the 14 years since it opened, the Museum of Tolerance has become an international sensation, attracting millions of visitors with its message of compassion and mutual respect. But to Sharron Lerman, who lives two blocks away, the landmark has become something more: a bad neighbor.
Ms. Lerman and other homeowners complain about tour buses blocking their driveways, crowds leaving trash on their streets, and even FBI agents prowling their rooftops when foreign dignitaries visit.
Now Ms. Lerman and about 100 of her neighbors are trying to stop the museum from enclosing part of its open-air memorial plaza to build a two-story cultural center with a café and rooftop garden — a complex that could be rented out for weddings, bar mitzvahs, and other private functions.
The longtime neighbors are pressing their campaign against the museum’s owner, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the organization named for the famed Nazi hunter.
Many of those fighting the plans are Jewish and many are museum members. They say they support the museum’s mission to educate people about intolerance and hate, but they object to plans they believe would further spoil the peace and quiet of their Los Angeles neighborhood.
The expansion would require a loosening of conditions imposed by the city of Los Angeles from the center’s beginning to protect the community. Among the changes: Operating hours would expand significantly, keeping the museum open until midnight for private affairs. The cafeteria would be open to the public. A 100-foot buffer separating the museum from homes — an area now occupied by the memorial plaza — would be reduced to 20 feet.
“They don’t care about us as neighbors,” Ms. Lerman, a museum member who has lived nearby for 41 years, said. “Very insensitive.”
Museum leaders, who enjoy the backing of Governor Schwarzenegger, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and other political heavyweights, say they have done everything possible to reduce the effects on neighbors. They have stationed extra security staff outside the museum, for example, and passed out fliers reminding bus drivers to stay off neighborhood streets.
But museum executives acknowledge that buses continue to rumble through the neighborhood — in violation of the museum’s operating permit — despite their best efforts.
“We don’t want to be disrespectful of our neighbors,” the founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center, Rabbi Marvin Hier, said. “We’re not perfect.”
Rabbi Hier said the proposed cultural center is necessary to raise revenues and to accommodate the phenomenal growth of the museum, which has gained a global reputation for its exhibits and educational programs about the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, and other subjects that have attracted an estimated 4 million visitors since 1993.
“Cultural institutions must be allowed reasonable growth,” he said. “We can’t stay where we are in the same amount of square footage. It’s a very modest addition.” The 13,500-square-foot cultural center would fit within the existing footprint of the 80,000-square-foot museum. The facility also would annex about 7,400 square feet from an adjoining private Jewish high school for exhibits and receptions.
The museum’s director, Liebe Geft, said enclosing the memorial plaza would reduce museum noise. She said private functions would not be held in exhibit space devoted to the Holocaust and other sensitive subjects.
“This will always be the Museum of Tolerance. Itisnot a place where wild parties and carnivals will take place,” Ms. Geft, who lives within walking distance of her job, said. “It will never lose the character and the mission for which it was created.”
Museum supporters believe that some of the problems of trash and noise may be caused by the Jewish high school.
Besides Messrs. Schwarzenegger and Villaraigosa, Senator Feinstein, a Democrat of California, and Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman and Howard Berman have declared their support for the expansion in letters to the city Planning Department.
City Councilman Jack Weiss testified on the museum’s behalf last week before a department panel. He voiced skepticism about the problems for the neighborhood and said the museum’s benefits far outweigh its shortcomings.
“They have done literally a world of good, and any smart city would be lucky to have them and nurture them,” Mr. Weiss said. “It would be perverse public policy to punish them now for their enormous success. Good public policy will nurture their future success at healing the world.”
Rabbi Hier and other museum proponents say a handful of activists is trying to derail a project that enjoys significant community support. Museum officials say they have received more than 460 supportive letters.
The opposition is led by two residents who have waged similar fights during the last two decades to place limits on the museum and the high school next door.
Entertainment attorney Susan Gans and Dr. Daniel Fink, a museum member, say the expansion will undo regulations the community brokered to protect their quiet enclave. They point, for example, to the 100-foot buffer the museum agreed to in exchange for permission to add a fourth story, in excess of local height limits.
Ms. Gans and other opponents have collected more than 100 signatures on a petition calling for the city to reject the museum’s proposal.
“We made a deal in 1986. We sat in a room for a year and negotiated,” Ms. Gans said. “All of the problems have gotten worse. There is nothing more we are willing to give up.”
Ms. Gans and Dr. Fink were among more than 50 homeowners who showed up last week at a community meeting at Hamilton High School. One at a time, residents ticked off their problems with parking, buses, noise and trash. Eric Manon, whose home sits about 100 yards from the museum, said the area was becoming a commercial zone. “We all stand to lose big if the museum gets its way,” he said. Opponents say they will continue fighting as the museum’s plans head to the Planning Commission in early 2008.