The Metropolitan Museum of Art has signed an amendment to its lease with New York City dating back to 1878. The new amendment confirms and continues the 42-year-long agreement under which the Met and New York first established a discretionary admission policy for the institution. The new amendment also authorizes the museum to consider a range of admission modifications in future years, which would need to be reviewed and approved by New York City before being implemented.
Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Met, said, “It is important to make clear as we sign this amendment that we remain very much committed to maintain – and further widening – public access to the Museum. Toward this end, we recently expanded our hours by opening the Met seven days a week, and have enhanced programs designed to reach out to attract visitors from every community of the City. The effort to broaden and diversify audiences will continue. At the same time, however, faced with perennial uncertainties about future funding sources, the Met and the City concluded that it makes sense now to consecrate our longstanding and wholly legal admissions policies.” Campbell added, “We are extremely grateful that the City, which has long provided essential operating support to the Met, has moved now to reaffirm a policy that not only allows visitors to pay what they wish at the door, but has encouraged us to offer same-week entrance at no additional cost to the Cloisters museum and gardens in Fort Tryon Park, and has enabled us to provide free-with-admission access to all special exhibitions, as well as cost-free gallery tours, curatorial lectures, library access, and visits by New York City school groups. We expect and trust that the museum and the City will continue to work cooperatively into the future to preserve full access to the Met under the generous admissions policies so wisely created in the past.”
The Met currently has a pay-what-you-wish admission policy for its more than six million annual visitors. According to the new lease terms, the museum may set the terms of admission to its permanent galleries to the general public, including admission fees and days and hours the Museum shall be open to the public, with permission from New York City.
