A $25 museum fee is $25 too high

To the editor:

My wife and I have long ago cut down on supporting The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Actually, she pays an annual membership fee to an outside organization, which allows her — and sometimes me as well — to attend most American museums for free.

When I go to The Met, I have been making a token contribution of 25 cents. 

Here’s why I’ve been angry. There is a New York state statute that mandates The Met charge no entry fee. Over the decades, The Met has been a repeat scofflaw, violating that law in many ways.

For a while, it charged special admission fees to enter special exhibitions. Since it was called out in court for that, it has tried to psychologically coerce unsophisticated patrons into “contributing” its “suggested” entry fee, which is a lot more than the vast majority of New York City patrons pay.

I have seen out-of-towners, especially foreign tourists, who assumed that they were obligated to give the high suggested fee, and how happy they become when I intervene to explain that they can give what they want.

When someone like me is not around, most of them behave like Mr. Barnum’s targets, who paid a special fee to see The Grand Egress.

I have also been at a loss to see The Met publicly lionizing some of their far-right donors, like the Koch brothers. How would the public in rural Utah react if a museum there, supported by state and municipal funds, named a building — for Barack Obama?

What makes me even angrier is The Met’s new policy of charging non-residents of New York City a $25 per person entry fee. Philippe de Montebello, The Met’s great director of long ago, would be appalled. He sought to bring art to the masses.

The new policy will have the opposite effect. Very few poor people visit now (just note the ethnicity of most patrons now). 

How many poor families from poor parts of suburban New Jersey, Westchester, Nassau or Suffolk will pay $25 each?

Alan Saks