This is art-breaking!
Non-NYers must pay Met’s $25
Come March, a New Jersey resident working in Manhattan will have to pay more to pop in to the Metropolitan Museum of Art than a tourist visiting from Buffalo.
The cash-strapped cultural gem announced on Thursday that it will start charging out-of-staters a mandatory $25 admission, while remaining pay-as-you-wish for anyone with a valid New York ID.
The new outsiders fee was met with less-than-artful grumbling by visitors from around the world and as near as the Garden State.
“Makes me cringe,” said a California designer who gave his name as Andrew P., 25, sticking out his tongue for emphasis.
“Guess it’s my last time visiting the Met,” said New Jerseyan Meghan Peskins, 31.
“I had comfort in knowing the Met was always free,” she added.
“I depend on art to escape the reality of the world. I hope this institution loses money! Ugh!”
Entry will remain free for kids under 12, no matter where they’re from. And students attending schools in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut will be asked to pay only what they wish.
But even seniors living out of state or non-New Yorker students attending schools outside the tristate area will be hit up for mandatory, though reduced, fees — at $17 and $12, respectively.
That discount was no consolation for Shannon Race, 24, an art-journalism grad student at the Art Institute of Chicago. She invoked the Greek god of wine in her outrage.
“So the Met is demanding me to pay to see a marble statue of Dionysos, and not giving me a free glass of red wine?” she raged. “Next time I want to go to the Met, I’ll Google the artwork instead.”
As a consolation, museumgoers who pay for entry can use their ticket for three consecutive days to gain admission back in the Met or at its other properties, the Met Breuer and the Met Cloisters.
“A healthy Metropolitan Museum of Art is extremely important for New York City,” city Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl said.
“It’s the heart and soul of New York City. It’s an educational powerhouse, and it’s extremely important for the economy.”
The pay-as-you-wish system with a “suggested” admission had been in place since 1970.
But these donations, along with huge benefactor gifts and $26 million in city taxpayer dollars a year, wasn’t generating enough cash flow, officials said Thursday.
Over the last 13 years, the proportion of visitors who actually paid the $25 dropped from 63 percent to 17 percent, officials said.
The museum projects an extra $6 million to $11 million a year under the new policy.