JAMESTOWN, N.Y. — Comedian Billy Crystal asks the question in a video that welcomes visitors to the National Comedy Center.

Everybody else has a place,” he says. “Why not us?”

It may be as good a reason as any for the construction of the high-tech new center devoted to what has made people laugh from Vaudeville to now.

But there’s more to it.

The nonprofit center in Jamestown was inspired by hometown hero, Lucille Ball, who envisioned a place where comedy would be celebrated as an art form. The city of about 30,000 people in the southwest corner of New York already is home to the annual Lucille Ball Comedy Festival and the Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum.

“But it was always (Ball’s) preference that Jamestown become a destination for the celebration of all comedy in a way that would foster and inspire the next generation of artists,” says National Comedy Center Executive Director Journey Gunderson. “What we’ve done here is finally bring her vision to fruition.”