A Mandatory Entrance Fee at the Met?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/opinion/a-mandatory-entrance-fee-at-the-met.html

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To the Editor:

“Mayor Endorses Entrance Fee for the Metropolitan Museum” (news article, April 27) discusses the political and economic issues involved in setting admission prices at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The posted admission prices — whether they are called “suggested” or “recommended” — are a real barrier.

Put yourself in the shoes of a poor family. Would you have the courage to request free admission? I am aware of the economic exigencies of running a museum. But the city and the museum directors should do everything possible to lower those admission barriers.

In the long term, the cultivation of a museum-attending public would benefit everyone. I grew up in Brooklyn in a family without strong cultural traditions, but my parents did take me to museums, and now, as an adult, I love going to museums. My children do as well.

ALICE L. GIVAN, BRENTWOOD, N.H.

To the Editor:

The bulletin flashing on my cellphone that the Metropolitan Museum was considering charging full admission for “out-of-towners” made my heart sink — not as an artist and museum professional for my own frequent visits to the museum, but for my art students, who are citizens of New Jersey.

They already have difficulty scrounging for the money to take the bus in for assigned visits to the Met. If they had to pay full admission, they simply would go online instead, and miss the great cultural advantage of being across the river from the world’s best museum, seeing great art as it should be seen — first hand.

I realize that there are financial difficulties, but it certainly seems tragic to burden local art students with the fallout of mismanagement.

MIMI WEINBERG, MONTCLAIR, N.J.

The writer is an adjunct professor of art history at Montclair State University.

To the Editor:

It is definitely appropriate for the Met to charge admission to nonresidents of New York City while letting residents pay what they wish. Museums elsewhere (and even, as I discovered, a church with an important art collection in Venice) charge nonresidents while letting locals in for free. Art lovers will surely understand the appropriateness of paying for access to a museum where they will want to spend many hours.

SUSAN SCHAIER, NEW YORK

To the Editor:

If the Met changes its admission policies, many museum members might drop their memberships in protest. I definitely will. Yes, the membership lets me in for previews of special shows and gives a 10 percent discount at its shops. But I can wait to see the shows when they open to the general public and find plenty of gifts in other museum shops.

As long as the city gives the museum money, it needs to be as close to free as a “suggested” amount allows.

SALLY DORST, NEW YORK