Staten Island’s James Oddo Is The Biggest LL Cool J Fan In The Council

The City Council has approved funding for a hip-hop museum in the Bronx:

The City Council has quietly allocated $1.5 million in capital funding over the next two years that will serve as seed money for a hip-hop museum in the northeast section of the Bronx.

The funding came at the behest of a City Council member, Larry Seabrook, who is closely allied with a nonprofit group in his district that is planning a community center and housing development at the corner of 212th Street and White Plains Road. The museum would be part of the project.

Mr. Seabrook said he envisions the museum as a forum to educate future generations about the hip-hop movement as it began on the streets of the Bronx in the 1970s, long before the genre became linked with turf wars and lyrics that advocated violence against women. “We’re not talking about gangster rap,” Mr. Seabrook said. “We’re talking about hip-hop.”

While the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., announced plans earlier this year for a permanent hip-hop exhibition, the project in the Bronx is believed to be the first museum dedicated to the movement.

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Other lawmakers criticized the use of public funds for a hip-hop museum. “I’m the biggest LL Cool J fan in the council, but this is not a proper use of taxpayer money,” the council’s Republican leader, James Oddo of Staten Island, said. He added that he supported a hip-hop museum, but only as a private venture. “If this is such a great idea, then it sells itself,” he said.

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Despite the start-up cash from the city, a hip-hop museum in the Bronx still faces a number of obstacles. Early plans call for the museum to occupy one or two floors of a multi-purpose center being built by the nonprofit Northeast Bronx Redevelopment Corporation. The group is hoping to combine several floors of low- to moderate-income housing with a gymnasium, a small theater, a recording studio, and the museum.

The project is planned for the site of an abandoned transfer station that the group acquired from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority this spring. The corporation has also received more than $1 million in state funding to clean up the site, which Mr. Seabrook said could take up to two years.