Haute 100 Update: Mayor Bloomberg Allows Metropolitan Museum of Art to Charge Mandatory Entrance Fee

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was recently given the choice to enforce a mandatory entrance fee of their choosing. With the help of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, The Met now has the right to charge a $25 entrance fee, which was previously only “suggested.”

Many New Yorkers aren’t happy with the idea of a set entrance price because they feel the museum was already tricking visitors into paying the suggested fee with confusing signs. “The museum‘s effort to arrange a lease amendment, in the dead of night, without notice to the public and without regard to the democratic process, is nothing but a desperate stunt by the museum to defeat claims its lawyers must know are valid,” Lawyer Michael Hiller told NY Daily News.

Similar leases were signed by the American Museum of Natural History and the Museum of The City of New York. Parks commissioner, Veronica White, signed the lease that now allows the museum to “set the terms of admission to its permanent galleries to the general public.”