General
A French Museum Has Global Needs (but It Can’t Have New Jersey)
The Pompidou Center is creating international outposts to help fund a renovation of its Paris home. What happens now that Jersey City has pulled out?
The century-old Pathside Building in downtown Jersey City was originally a transportation hub for streetcar lines, but it took on a new role three years ago: It became the chosen destination for an outpost of the Pompidou Center, the Paris arts complex.
In a June 2021 video news conference, the mayor of Jersey City, Steven Fulop, announced the Centre Pompidou Jersey City project, a 58,000-square-foot future museum with full access to the Pompidou collection, Europe’s largest for modern and contemporary art.
“Partnerships like this aren’t easy to obtain, and the Pompidou could have chosen any city in the country,” Fulop said at the time. “We are making a bet, and a big bet, that arts is part of what makes a city a great place to live.”
Today, all bets are off. The New Jersey state legislature rescinded $24 million in funding for the satellite Pompidou museum in June, and officials paused the project indefinitely, saying they wanted to avoid saddling taxpayers with an expensive venture.
For the Pompidou Center, the postponement of the outpost means an immediate budgetary shortfall. The Pompidou, which opened in 1977, is a Paris landmark with a reputation for high-caliber exhibitions. It gets two-thirds of its annual budget from the French government — down from 90 percent when it first opened. It has to raise the rest, about $45 million a year, through ticket sales and international projects.