The Metropolitan Museum Of Art has announced that it will officially reopen to the public starting on August 29th. At that point, it will have been more than five months since the museum first closed on March 13th due to the pandemic.
"The safety of our staff and visitors remains our greatest concern," said Daniel H. Weiss, President and CEO of The Met. "We are eager to reopen and expect this will be possible next month. Perhaps now more than ever the Museum can serve as a reminder of the power of the human spirit and the capacity of art to bring comfort, inspire resilience, and help us better understand each other and the world around us."
As with the New-York Historical Society and The Museum Of The City Of New York (MCNY), which have both also announced they are reopening in the coming weeks, there will be safety precautions and changes to The Met's usual schedule. The museum will initially be open five days a week from Thursday through Monday. On Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays, it will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It will offer later hours on Thursdays and Fridays and be open from noon to 7 p.m. They add that The Met Cloisters will reopen sometime in September.
As for safety precautions, The Met has come up with their safety procedures in accordance with the guidelines from the CDC, the state and the city. That includes limiting the number of visitors at one time to 25 percent of the museum's maximum capacity; enhanced cleaning procedures; and requiring all staff and visitors to wear face coverings inside the museum. Everyone who enters the building will be asked to practice social distancing of at least six feet, and there will be hand sanitizing stations throughout.
No printed materials (including maps) will be available on site (but you can download them in advance of going). There will be additional signage reminding people of the rules and how to navigate the galleries. You can read the complete list of guidelines and recommendations on The Met's website.
In addition, all tours, talks, concerts, and events will be canceled through the rest of 2020. They say they hope to resume all those activities in 2021, including the Met Gala, which was officially canceled for 2020; and they plan to have a belated celebration of the museum's 150th anniversary next year as well.
When visits resume, the museum has a few exhibits it's planning to debut, including: Making The Met, 1870-2020, the signature exhibition of the Museum’s 150th anniversary celebration; The Roof Garden Commission: Héctor Zamora, Lattice Detour, the latest in a series of annual presentations of a site-specific work on the open-aired roof garden; and Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle. The Costume Institute’s About Time: Fashion and Duration exhibition, which was going to be the theme of this year's Met Gala, is scheduled to open on October 29th, 2020.
The Met has projected at least a $100 million loss in revenue because of the pandemic and the shutdown (and that figure was based on estimations that the museum would be able to reopen in July). As a result, it has laid off 81 staff members so far.
Before COVID-19, The Met had previously closed for two days on only two occasions: after 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy.
You can also read more about MCNY's reopening, which is planned for July 23rd, and the conversations various museums and cultural institutions around NYC have been having in preparation of the reopenings.
