First of all, I love the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I still remember the first time I saw the place with my beloved Mother at perhaps 6 or 7 years old. We we're quite poor, and other museums had expensive fees. But not the Met. Since that time, I have enjoyed its extensive wonders dozens of times, become a member and patron, and bestowed its appreciation upon my own children. I'll never forget when my daughter said at one point "Dad, I think I 'get' art!" The Met is a special place. Those of us who love it also like that it is free of charge to all those who wish to behold its treasures, no matter who you are or where you come from. As one of the greatest cultural institutions of the world, New Yorkers take great civic pride that the Met is here, a brief trip from our homes. But also because people come from all over the world to see what for us is our local everyday museum. If you can get here, there is no barrier to entry.
So this news is not welcome:
Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday endorsed having the Metropolitan Museum of Art charge admission for visitors from outside New York City, a controversial idea given that the Met is a taxpayer-supported institution that was free for a century and now has only a “suggested” entrance fee that many don’t pay.
The museum, grappling with a multimillion-dollar budget deficit, has been quietly talking to city officials for a year about a mandatory fee for nonresidents. But thorny questions still must be resolved, like how to verify that visitors are not New Yorkers, whether it is fair to charge people who work in the city or are from the suburbs and what amount would be required.
The Met has always had a 'suggested fee' of some sort. People do not have to pay it. If you can manage the fee, pay it. If not, toss in whatever you can. If you can't pay anything, don't. That's the way its always worked. I have on many occasions brought friends and family from out of town and thrown in whatever loose change I have on me and that's that. The wealthy families of New York City who founded the Met intended it to be this way, so much so they managed to get it enshrined into law in 1893 which states that it “shall be kept open and accessible to the public free of all charge throughout the year.”
The City of New York owns the property and building which houses the museum and supports it with taxpayer's money to the tune of 8% of its $330 million annual budget. Clear financial mismanagement by recent curators have put the museum in financial straights as it sought to compete in New York's highly competitive museum sector. But setting the Met at odds with its founding mission, a mission which has made it among the world's largest collections along with the British Museum, The Louvre, and the Vatican Museums, is not the way to solve its financial problems. Quite frankly, the best way to do that is to bring in more aggressive fundraising to cultivate a new generation of wealthy donors. The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, the Brooklyn Museum...hell even the Museum of Sex have all found success luring donors while charging entrance fees. But the Met is a public cultural landmark of Western Civilization and one of New York's and America's crown jewels. It should remain free to anyone who can get here to see it.
Finally, this thing is a slippery slope. It may be tourists who are targeted now, but once the Museum has trouble sorting out who is and isn't a New Yorker, everyone will end up paying. That would be a tragic mistake in City with hundreds of museums and cultural institutions to choose from.