Eli Broad Interview With Huffington Post's Willow Bay

VIDEO: Eli Broad Bets On Downtown LA

Huffington Post senior editor Willow Bay interviewed billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad for a segment on today's Bloomberg Television morning news. Bay notes that Broad "built his fortune bringing a vision of suburbia to homebuyers across California and the Southwest" with his company KB Home. But for Broad's $130 million museum and $200 million endowment, he has chosen to bet on Downtown Los Angeles, musing "it's starting to catch on."

It's an old joke that Los Angeles lacks culture, and Broad is adamant that the city's reputation now rivals other international hotspots: "No one has a better symphony hall or opera. We've got great museums, and more theaters than New York or London... We're one of the four major cultural capitals in the world, together with New York, London, and Paris."

When asked if Grand Avenue "really needs" another museum of contemporary art so close to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Broad replied, "that's like asking 5th Avenue New York, 'do you really need the Guggenheim, the Met, The Modern down there [MoMA], the Jewish Museum, and so on.' The answer is yes!"

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