French museum, New Jersey city seek cultural alliance

The Statue of Liberty could be getting some company from her native France

The Statue of Liberty could be getting some company from her native France. State, local and museum officials on Friday announced a planned partnership between Paris' Pompidou Center and New Jersey's Jersey City to transform a gutted industrial building into a satellite museum in the heart of a transportation hub for thousands of commuters that is not far from where Lady Liberty stands in New York Harbor. Centre Pompidou x Jersey City, scheduled to open in 2024, would be the French museum's first venture in North America, said Centre Pompidou President Serge Lasvignes. It currently has sites in Metz, France; Shanghai, China; Malaga, Spain; and Brussels, Belgium. The satellite would be completed in time for when the Paris museum, which houses more than 120,000 modern works of art in its unique architecture of exposed colored pipes and air ducts, undergoes a major renovation.