Shady Investor Dooms Children's Museum

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Apr 19th 2009 at 8:02PM

The Children's Museum of Los Angeles has filed for bankruptcy before it even opened its doors. The $52 million project was to be located in a 57,000 square foot facility in the Hansen Dam Recreation Area that was to have exhibits conceived by famed designer (and Caroline Kennedy's husband) Edwin Schlossberg. The museum's highlight was to be a model of the ecosystem grounded by a large tree which would be an interactive exhibit.

The museum had its fate tied to its main donor, investor Bruce Friedman. Friedman, who had pledged $10 million, dropped his pledge after the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit last month accusing him of stealing $17 million from investors. The museum needed $22 million to open by 2010 and nearly half of that was to come from a charity run by Friedman. Without his money, the museum board opted to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy and liquidate its assets.

The LA Daily News reports that on Wednesday the Los Angeles City Council will hold a hearing to discuss plans to take ownership of the property. It is expected that the court will appoint a trustee to oversee the museum, which also received over $10 million from the city.

Tags: bruce friedman, BruceFriedman, childrens museum of los angeles, ChildrensMuseumOfLosAngeles, los angeles, LosAngeles

Filed under: Art, Charity

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Edward Smith Apr 19th 2009 11:25PM

You have an offensive typo in the article, you typed "The museum's highlight was to be a model of the ecosystem grounded by a large tree which SERVED ASS an interactive exhibit", you may want to fix that, you can't have people think you're serving ass lol