In the late-1970s I haunted the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The suggested admission was $5. I gave the cashier a quarter, since a fiver bought a nice meal at the Dorothy Draper’s elegantly designed Fountain Restaurant.
Over the years I might have been to the museum a hundred times.
I know the Asmat sculptures, the Thomas Coles, and El Greco’s VIEW OF TOLEDO.
Back in those days no one went to the museum.
I had it to myself on many occasions, but over the years the public sought Art and thronged to the 5th Avenue institution in the millions.
The suggested admission has risen over the decades to the present $25, but I fight that inflation by staying true to my 25 cent contribution. Few people know that you give what you want to give and the confusing placard at the museum’s several ticket booths are not designed to enlighten the public that they don’t have to pay a single cent.
Two lawsuits are challenging that deception and Mayor Bloomberg has signed a lease to the Museum that permits whatever entrance charge the board members deem appropriate. The lame-duck mayor signed similar contracts with the American Museum of Natural History and the Museum of the City of New York.
According to the Daily News Lawyer Michael Hiller, who has filed one of two lawsuits against the Met claiming it duped museumgoers, blasted the new lease. “The museum‘s effort to arrange a lease amendment, in the dead of night, without notice to the public and without regard to the democratic process, is nothing but a desperate stunt by the museum to defeat claims its lawyers must know are valid. It won’t sell politically. It won’t pass muster legally, and if anything, merely reinforces the fact the museum has been violating the lease for the last 43 years and that it must stop.”
The mayor’s office declined comment.
More proof that Mayor Bloomberg serves the rich.
After all they let him become a billionaire.
And we the people can only react as sheep or enter the Met with a shiny quarter in our hands and say, “Admission for two.”
The revolution starts small.
25 cents small.