Dear American Museum of Natural History,
You’ve been home to many of my school trips over the course of my academic career, and responsible for me meeting one of the coolest teachers I’ve met. Your exhibits are interesting and pretty diverse, which is something that can be lacking in many other places. There are some things though that can be problematic, the main one being the prices people must pay to see your exhibits.
History is said to be taught so that it may never be repeated. If your museum is about history, why does it cost so much for people to learn it? This hurts those who live in lower class families because it prevents them from possibly learning history they might find intriguing. Don’t you think that the more people learn about history, the better off they can be? You claim on your website that the museum was made for those with a passion of discovery, but if they can’t pay the entrance fee, the only thing they can discover is the front door. In order to fulfill that idea of having the museum made for discovery, how about making the tickets cheaper so that those people can actually go see your exhibits, including the special shows. If this is a money issue, focus on the bigger picture, that the cheaper the tickets, the more people will want to go, and the more people that go, the more money you will make and lives you will enhance. It’s just food for thought.
A person with a passion for discovery,
Kaelah Blanchette
Dear Museum of Modern Art officers and trustees,
To begin, I would like to thank the staff and board for consistently working towards making the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) the cornerstone of modern art in the world, with an ever changing collection of contemporary art. Wholeheartedly, I find the MoMA to be the heart of developing and curating modern art both domestically and abroad. The museums are such an amazing resource that everyone should try to utilize it, and being in the backyard for New York City inhabitants, it is nothing short of a necessity for the cultural improvement of our residents. Above all, students really do need adequate involvement with the arts as they grow, to help broaden their perspectives, and introduce concepts not typically discussed in the classroom setting. Art has been shown to improve the motor skills, problem solving capabilities, language based skills, but most importantly, it is a part of our culture. It allows for the link between ethnicities, cultures, religions, economic classes, and connects us as humans. Sadly, school curriculums have been slowly chipping away at the involvement of fine arts education over the past few decades. The arts cannot be learned through occasional or random exposure any more than math or science can. This belief of the further integration of arts into the lifestyles of students would hope to further open up the MoMA for the youth of New York to fully appreciate.
The current pricing and hour situation does have a lot of inclusive factors. The free Uniqlo sponsored hours every Friday, from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM if a great way to remove the financial barrier barring some from accessing the Museum. The fluctuating price points, pictured below in the table, are very accommodating to the different age groups and the assumed correlated income ranges at the given ranges. Along with this, the current free admission at all times for the MoMA PS1 in Queens, courtesy of the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation, is yet another crucial step the MoMA has taken to open their doors.
Location / Pricing
Group
The Museum of Modern Art
(Manhattan)
MoMA PS1
(Long Island City)
Students
(w/ Full time Student ID)
$14
FREE
Seniors
(65 or over with ID)
$18
FREE
Children
(16 years and under)
FREE
FREE
Adults
$25
FREE
Although the MoMA those currently offer accommodations with their current pricing and hours criterion. The weekday hours are from 10:30 AM to 5:30 PM, excluding holidays. These non flexible weekday hours make it difficult, to impossible, for some groups to properly visit the facilities. For students in the elementary to high school years, the class schedule starts in the early morning, say 6 to 7 AM, and concludes from 2 to 3 PM on the weekdays. For students in the periphery of both locations, the commute time mitigates ample time for potential visitors to enjoy and absorb the museum’s works. The timing also conflicts with the prospective extracurriculars students may adopt after school, and is an unfair sacrifice for any to make. The free hours from 4 to 8 PM every Friday, while a good step forward, are still slim both hour wise and day wise. Most high school students work Fridays after school due to the weekend. This Uniqlo free night results in substantial lineups before hand, again taking away from enjoying time inside. As the MoMA website even states, “To avoid long lines, visitors are strongly encouraged to arrive after 6:00 p.m.”, to limit students to only two hours in a visit, and accounting for the amount of extracurriculars, is a disservice to the contents of the museum. Finally, the free admission offered at the MoMA PS1 has an unintended deterrents. The current layout for the PS1 admission fee page has the suggested donation amounts presented in the same format as the Manhattan locations fees are shown. Thus, it can lead to some confusion from those navigating the site for information, and the assumed price of PS1 may push some away. The location is also far removed from the normally traversed areas in New York City, and presents a commuting challenge to potential suitors. While the Museum in Manhattan is located on 53rd Street, between 6th and 5th Avenue, PS1 is far off in Queens, and is hard for more casual visitors to justify commuting to.
The Museum of Modern Art will continue to be a staple for contemporary art, and will maintain the current strong levels of traffic. This letter hopes to simply open up the discussion of tweaking the current system to be more accommodating the the student class living in NYC. While there may be an initial lack of response from younger generations, which may be seen as a failure for change to reap positive rewards, this initiative should be seen as a process to ingrain an appreciation for the arts from a young age. By adapting the hours to stretch later into the evenings, and incentivizing events to a younger audience, through medium or admission fees, the MoMA can be at the forefront of elevating the cultural awareness of New York. While the sacrifice of profits in the short run may present itself as a deterrent, by pushing for more accommodating criterion for entry, we can hopefully secure the future of the fine arts for years to come.
Best,
Edison Sears