The Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County Thursday announced its largest-ever donation, which will be used to establish the Samuel Oschin Global Center for Ice Age Research.
The philanthropic gift from the Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Oschin Family Foundation towards the new research center will help advance the La Brea Tar Pits’ long-planned makeover of the 13-acre fossil-rich site.
NHM President and Director Lori Bettison-Varga said in a statement that the foundation’s “transformational gift allows us to amplify the research that has always been at the heart of the Tar Pits, and to more fully integrate it into a revitalized and modernized campus that connects science, landscape, education and community in powerful new ways.”
With progressive research as its mission, “the re-imagined Tar Pits will be one of the most consequential scientific and cultural sites in the world,” she said.
The museum declined to say the amount of the donation, but a news release says NHM has now raised $131 million toward its goal of $240 million for the Tar Pits’ renovation.
NHM officials said the project will tell the story of Los Angeles’ Ice Age past, when mammoths and dire wolves roamed the landscape, connecting research and science for visitors.
New renderings of the makeover reveal a pedestrian loop connecting excavation sites, research and exhibition spaces, and updated and expanded Pleistocene gardens, which will include the Tar Pits’ iconic mammoths.
Donor Lynda Oschin, chairman of the board and secretary of the Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Oschin Family Foundation, said in the NHM release that she and her late husband started their foundation, “to inspire future generations by supporting organizations that deepen our understanding of the world around us.”
“There is no place on Earth like La Brea Tar Pits,” she said. “It is fitting to honor my husband Samuel Oschin’s legacy by supporting science and research in the heart of Los Angeles, a city he helped to develop and shape.”