FAQ

Tourism and museum admissions have rebounded to pre-COVID levels. Further, New York City taxpayers subsidize these institutions with hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

The institutions operate rent-free for a total of approximately $700M in indirect subsidies.

New Yorkers deserve the reciprocity of free admission and popular instruction as codified in state law.

As an example, The Met offers corporate donors free admission for their staff. In exchange for just a few million dollars, The Met forgoes tens of millions of dollars in admissions fees from corporate staff. This is redundant for New York City-based employees.

Most of the institutions are well endowed. It is up to these institutions’ Boards of Trustees to operate their institutions profitably. They have the obligation to meet the provisions of the law first, and then to make the decisions necessary to be profitable or to set in place policies and practice to fund deficits.

Until 1970, the institutions’ policies complied with state law.

In 1970, The Metropolitan Museum of Art undertook a substantial expansion and sought approval from the City of New York’s Park Commissioner.

During this expansion effort, The Met sought permission to charge a pay-whatyou-wish but you-must-pay-something admission policy.

From 1970 on, institutions seeking admission fee changes generally sidestepped state authorization.

New York City’s Park Commissioner and other heads of city agencies or city administrations did not have the authority to act to supersede state law.

Laws are not stagnant. They are amended and repealed to adjust for changing times and term. Further, we learned through Freedom of Information Act [FOIL] requests that most of the institutions are charging admission due to agreements with the City. State laws, however, supersede local laws.

Because founding philanthropists wanted to avoid a then-corrupt City Hall, the original founding legislation was purposely done at the State-level instead of the City-level. Lease agreements were executed at the City-level, and some of the 20th century institutions were structured by administrative code, but the City does not have the authority to supersede state law.

Currently, none of the institutions offer the number of free days that New Yorkers are entitled to by law.

Any form of non-compliant free policy is a veiled attempt to dupe New York City taxpayers, workers and school children to accept less than what they are entitled to.

Further, the current admissions policies do not acknowledge or adhere to the publicprivate partnership that ultimately enabled the creation of these institutions, nor do they address the needs of New Yorkers for whom the institutions were created.

Access remains a challenge for many New Yorkers who:

• can’t afford the cost of admission
• can’t arrange their schedules to make it to the institutions on the one day or brief few hours per week that they might allow free admission
• assume that they cannot afford admission when they see suggested donation fees, or who fear judgement for paying less
• struggle with literacy and/or English as a second language

Rather than treating free access as insider knowledge, the institutions should comply with and be more transparent about New Yorkers’ rights to free admission in exchange for their free rent. Amid an ongoing affordability crisis, asking the average New Yorker to contribute more beyond the support they already provide via their taxes is unfair. It not only deters them from visiting and enjoying the institutions, but obfuscates the real, reciprocal nature of our relationship to them.