FREE ADMISSION, the First Website Dedicated to Educating New Yorkers of Their Rights to Free Admission to the Metropolitan Museum and 12 Other Park Institutions Launches

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• USA - English

NEW YORK, March 21, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Free Admission for All New Yorkers (FA), a new comprehensive website (http://www.museums4allnyc.com) founded by Pat Nicholson and dedicated to educating city- and state-wide New Yorkers on their rights to free admission to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met Museum) and 12 other city-funded park institutions, is launching now [in anticipation of the March-April holiday season] when the need for it is perhaps greatest.

FA's website provides the text of the free admission provisions for the Met Museum and as many of the other 12 park institutions for which those provisions were uncovered. [FA's Expanded Efforts section] If they so choose, New Yorkers may download the list and carry it with them as a reference as well as to show it to admissions' personnel at each park institution. [FA's Action Card section]

Said Nicholson, "The site's launch marks the first time that all the information regarding admissions policies can be found in one place." [With many dating back to the mid- to late-1800's, FA was unable to uncover free admission terms for all 13 park institutions and urges the NYS Attorney General Letitia James to undertake to find, publish and enforce the laws for all 13 (see FA's Take Action section).] As to the Met Museum, the rights of New Yorkers to free admission dates back to an 1878 Lease with NYC and Ch. 476 of the Laws of the State of New York of 1893.

From 1970 until recently, the Met Museum charged admission under a "confusing" pay-what-you-wish but you-must-pay-something" with a recommended amount admission fee policy for all visitors. Now, there is a $25/adult non-New Yorker admission fee and an "amount you pay is up to you" fee while suggesting $25/adult for New Yorkers.

Superseding the 1878 Lease providing the Met Museum rent-free use of City-owned buildings in reciprocity to New Yorkers for four days free admission and Sunday closure, unrepealed and unamended Ch. 476 of 1893 states that in reciprocity the Met Museum be open free to all New Yorkers five days, with one being Sunday afternoon, and two evenings in the week. However, neither City or State leaders nor administrators of the Met Museum refer to the value of the rent forgiveness. FA estimates it is an approximate $750,000,000 annual rent savings for the Museum. [Based on the Met Museum's current 2,000,000-plus square foot size and allocating 10% of that size to exclusive retail space at $3,500 per square foot and the rest as office space at $100 per square foot, that the Met Museum receives rent forgiveness in excess of three-quarters of one billion dollars annually.]

Nicholson reminds with emphasis, "The Met Museum accepts the benefit of $750,000,000 in free rent. Met Museum trustees should in effect be required to meet their obligation to provide free access by New Yorkers.'

"As importantly," Nicholson continued, "if the Met Museum complied with its Lease and Law providing free admission to New Yorkers and charged an admission fee to all non-New Yorker adults of $10, $15, $20 or $25 [with published attendance 7,000000], the Museum would operate in the black to the tune of some $78 Million Dollars at the $25/adult fee. A clear win-win solution. [Economic Advantage under FA Story on FA website]

When these 12 institutions were organized (see new FA site), it was intended that they serve as a "park education campus" for the enlightenment of our city's citizens. At holiday time when families seek to visit the Met Museum in particular; with limits on schools' programs and resources, this is the time for New Yorkers to visit the site and decide for themselves what their rights as taxpayers are to free admission.

Please go to http://www.museums4allnyc.com.  For media on deadline please contact Pat Nicholson directly at 917.597.2283.

SOURCE Free Admission