The Met’s Show of Resentment

Don’t buy the claim from the Metropolitan Museum of Art that fiscal needs are behind its move to start forcing non-New Yorkers to pay $25 for admission starting March 1. More likely, the Met just resents being forced to admit that its old “recommended” fee was just a suggestion.

Under its deal with the city — which owns the site and the building, and donates some $26 million a year — the museum has never had the right to charge admission. But it took a lawsuit to make it shift its signs from “recommended” to “suggested.”

Yes, the number of adults paying the requested fee has dropped from 63 percent in 2004 to 17 percent today. But that still brings in $43 million — and admissions soared from 4.7 million to 7 million over the same period.

To get the city’s OK for the new policy, which the Met expects to bring in from $6 million to $11 million, the museum agreed to a cut in city payments of up to $8 million a year. That means the net bump to the bottom line will be a paltry part of the Met’s $305 million operating budget.

Yes, all who can afford it should be happy to give at least $25 to view the Met’s worldclass art. And the Smithsonian and other free museums do get more taxpayer support.

But the new policy still looks less like a real bid to balance the museum’s budget — and more like sour grapes.