Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
So can students with IDs from Connecticut and New Jersey, up through graduate school.
Children under 12 will still be admitted free.
Seniors not living in New York State will now be required to pay $17.
Everyone else will have to pay $25.
(The Met says they will be admitted and told to bring ID next time.)
On every beautiful face waiting to maybe see something wonderful, I see some kind of pain.
I understand that we live in a country that doesnt much fund museums.
Imagine if Republicans told the Met toremove the Balthusbecause it offends some of their constituents.
Imagine if Paul Ryan got control of museum budgets.
The Met is a big operation.
It doesnt just present the miraculous cabinet of wonders of its permanent collection.
It also stages more than 50 special exhibitions a year, and it doesnt charge extra to see those.
This isnt the case at most museums.
The Brooklyn Museum, the Tate, the American Museum of Natural History all add fees for special exhibitions.
All this makes these special shows even more special.
We should love the Met for this, and we do.
All that costs a fortune.
The new admission fee is good for three days, so it will allow visits to all of them.
I love the Met, but I may be part of the problem here.
I go more than 40 times a year.
Although I can show a press card that confers free admission, I pay a dollar each time.
My wife and I have had scores of Friday-night dates at the Met.
(Though they are all these things, too.)
All this is almost free at the Met, which only makes the place that much more miraculous.
Seven million people came through last year, a record.
I do not begrudge the Met for trying to do whatever it can to maintain its preeminence.
There may lie the real problem.
The big cultural institutions boards of trustees are in a state of emergency, and they need to change.
That points to dysfunction within the institution and things amiss with trustees.
Their board members were likely tolerant of, or at least aware of, these festering situations.
Thats gross incompetence, both fiscal and moral.
Board members donate money; that is as it should be.
In America, having no such largesse means having no museums.
I love the Met and I always will.
The ticket prices are the least of it.
