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The shift comes as a growing number of visitors have opted out
of paying the full suggested donation, currently $25 for adults,
$17 for seniors and $12 for students, Daniel Weiss, the museum's
president, told reporters.
From March 1, those suggested amounts will become mandatory for
visitors who are not members and who do not live in New York
State, getting them a three-day pass in return.
"In 2004, 63 percent of those who came paid the full recommended
price," Weiss said. "In 2017, that is 17 percent. Effectively
the policy is failing."
New Yorkers will continue to pay what they wish, so long as it
is a penny or more, as will students from the neighboring states
of Connecticut and New Jersey and any child under 12 years old.
The new policy will affect about 31 percent of the roughly 7
million people visiting the museum each year, Weiss said. The
extra $5 million to $11 million the museum estimates this will
generate will be a modest boost towards covering its annual
operating budget of about $305 million.
The museum, spread across three sites in the city, is home to
thousands of exhibits, from ancient Egyptian art to Renaissance
paintings. The city leased the land on which the main building
sits, a prime slice of Manhattan's Central Park, in 1878 on
condition that the museum be free to the public most days. The
museum switched to suggested donations in the early 1970s but
only updated its lease with the city to reflect this in 2013.
The lease amendment also allowed the possibility of the museum
charging a compulsory entrance fee, with the city's consent,
though the museum said in 2013 it had no plans to do so.
Weiss said the museum was unique among institutions of its size
around the world in that it receives neither substantial state
funding, as do the museums grouped under the Smithsonian in
Washington, nor relies on fixed admission prices, as venues such
as the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan do.
The city's government, which approved the change, currently
covers a little less than 10 percent of the museum's expenses,
Weiss said, but may reduce its contribution by up to $3 million
in order to give more to other cultural institutions. Another 14
percent of revenue comes from donations at the door, a figure
expected to rise to 16 or 17 percent under the new policy.
(The story was refiled to remove an erroneously repeated word
'neither' from paragraph 9)
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Frances Kerry)
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