Another One Bites The Dust: The Paley Center

The Paley Center, formerly known as the Museum of Television & Radio, is out of here.

Back in 1996 I had the honor of opening and working at the Museum Of Television & Radio on Beverly Blvd in Beverly Hills. This was before YouTube and the idea of a museum where you could watch old tv shows was revolutionary, and the fact that a brand new multi-million dollar building designed by famed architect Richard Meir housed this museum made it a dream come true.

I still remember walking together with Richard Meier for final building inspections as he discussed every choice he made in the architecture weeks before the building opened to the public.

It turns out The Museum Of Television & Radio, now known as The Paley Center, does not own the land beneath the building. They pay 1.2 million dollars a year for its lease which they sublease it from Bank of America, which leased it from families that bought it way back in the 1920s. The Paley was in a lease that was supposed to last all the way up to February of 2024—but the property management firm that bought the property in 2014, Jenel Management Corp., is buying them out for a cool $47 million dollars to convert the property to high-end retail.

The Paley Center’s West Coast headquarters was home to many TV industry events and exhibits and was also a place for the public to screen historic TV shows and radio clips. Since people have access on-line to most of the material in the museum's archives, visitorship has slowed and it also seems that the organization had long outgrown its in-house event space and was holding the annual PaleyFest—a cavalcade of small-screen panels and talks—at the Dolby Theater, where the Oscars are held.

So The Paley Center Museum on Beverly location is going aways but the museum is not going anywhere. The Paley Fest is on track to be held from March 13 to 22 and will take place at the Directors Guild of America, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, and the Dolby Theater.

Times... they are changing, and can't wait to see what is going to go into the famed Meir building.  The Museum Of Television on Beverly, you will always have a special place in my ❤️.  xoxoo