Robin Pogrebin, The Met to Non-New Yorkers: $25, Please; Trying to secure a steady revenue after financial turbulence. New York Times, Jan 5, 2018.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/ ... eum-admissions.html
Quote:
(a) "For the first time in half a century, visitors to the world’s largest cultural institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will have to pay a mandatory admission fee of $25 if they do not live in New York State under a new policy that begins March 1, the museum announced on Thursday [Jan 4]. * * * [prompting] outcry from those who believe a taxpayer funded institution should be free to the public.
(b) "The Met's pay-as-you-wish tradition will continue for state residents, but they will be required, for the first time, to show address identification; those without it will be asked to bring it next time (but not turned away). There will be no separate check-in desk or screening process for non-New Yorkers. 'We can always make the rules more strict,' Mr [Daniel] Weiss[, the Met’s president and chief executive officer,] said, 'but I'm hoping we don't have to.'
"The required fee was borne of economic necessity, Mr Weiss said, and is related to a planned decline in New York City funds to the institution.
"The Met is among the most prestigious institutions in the world, on par with the Louvre, the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim, but has long been distinguished from those museums for not charging a mandatory admissions fee. Instead, it has sustained itself through private donations and public dollars; the city contributes operating support every year, because it owns the Met's Fifth Avenue building.
Note:
(a) There is no need to read the rest.
(b) Metropolitan Museum of Art
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art
(1870- ; section 4 History; section 5 Architecture; section 6 Management)
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