Did someone say, how was your weekend? Well, busy. First we were unwillingly evacuated from our home. So I didn’t have time to post about NASCAR champ Jeff Gordon listing his apartment at 15 Central Park West, subject of my just-completed next book, or about France selling the home of its UN ambassador at 740 Park, subject of an earlier real estate opus. Then, Le Monde published a story on the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute and its ball quoting my Rogues’ Gallery, and Gwyneth Paltrow, one of the select invited guests, opined that, “It sucked.” And finally, my exile on 57th Street ended with a new boom and thankfully, no bang. Developer Extell even apologized, sort of, and grudgingly, for treating One57′s neighbors like, well, guests at the Costume Institute gala. So how was it? Well, it still sucked to get kicked out of my home again, even if only for a day. But tomorrow is another day, even if it’s still this weekend.

In a followup to its revelation yesterday that the Metropolitan Museum of Art has charged admission for forty-plus years in violation of its lease, reporters Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein offer up Art of the $teal , a Sunday feature stuffed with more examples of the museum administration’s contempt for the public that owns its buildings, the land they sit on, and the art within. Gripepad supports the Met’s desire to collect admission, but finds its devotion to the public, to its own history and to the truth, in the words of its chief dissembler, a matter of interpretation.

The New York Post filed a Freedom of Information Act request to gain access to the long-hidden agreement that–Metropolitan Museum of Art officials have always alleged, most recently in statement by museum director Thomas Campbell–gave them the right to charge admission. But reporter Julia Marsh‘s story today reveals that no such agreement exists. The link above does not include the response to the Post’s charges from Museum spokesman Harold Holzer that appears in the iPad version of the paper today. He calls the report “a matter of interpertation.” This from the same flack who called Rogues’ Gallery “highly misleading,” yet failed to point out a single error in its pages. Artful!

Leonard Lauder‘s magnificent gift of a collection of Cubist masterpieces to the Metropolitan Museum of Art got front page treatment in the Times this morning. But the most interesting tid-bit was contained in the New York Post’s piece on the donation (which includes the Picasso at right). It quotes Lauder saying “This is a gift to the people who live and work in New York and those from around the world who come to visit our great art institutions.” That recognition–that the museum’s art is held in trust for the people of New York–is far too often forgotten or ignored by those who care more for the tender sensibilities of the Met’s ruling elite than they do for the rest of us. So thanks for the gift, Leonard. I’m just one New Yorker, but I know I’m not alone in my appreciation of your extraordinary generosity.

The Times’ Real Estate section on Sunday will include a story on New York’s growing obsession with closets by Elissa Gootman. It seems I let slip the title of my new book, just completed, on Fifteen Central Park West. It’s…here.

Institutions are run by individuals who sometimes fail to live up to what’s best about them. In an AP story making the rounds today about the latest class-action lawsuit accusing the leaders of the august Metropolitan Museum of Art of cowing and gouging visitors and violating the terms of its lease, MMA spokesman Harold Holzer (referred to as the Met’s Minister of Propaganda by one rogue curator) shows its administration’s thin skin when faced with insufficient reverence, calling the suit an “insupportable nuisance.” History repeats itself. Holzer criticized Rogues’ Gallery, too, calling it “highly misleading,” but failed to point out a single error. Now, he claims the museum’s policy of Pay What You Wish But You Must Pay Something has had city approval for decades, but has yet to support his claim with any proof of that approval. Gripepad hears FOIA requests have been made to the city, asking such proof be produced. The request may be in vain, though. A FOIA request failed to produce any records explaining what happened when future museum vice-chairman Annette de la Renta (then Anne France Mannheimer) and her mother Jane, who’d soon become both Mrs. Charles Engelhard (pictured) and an MMA trustee, were detained at U.S. immigration as “aliens held for special inquiry” on their arrival here. Information isn’t always free–at least not when it’s about the powerful. But you can read all about the origins of both pay-what-you-wish and the Mannheimer/Engelhard women in Rogues’ Gallery. Buy it here.

Ed Koch, New York’s most colorful modern mayor, died this morning. My favorite memory of him is our interview for Rogues’ Gallery, the story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Koch had long disdained the place as a clubhouse for its wealthy and arrogant patrons and greatly enjoyed winning several battles against the museum’s board. Aside from the wealthy and the socially prominent, The Met had a history of putting powerful people on its board, sometimes to seduce and neuter them (newspaper publishers, for instance), sometimes to use them. Henry Kissinger‘s diplomatic contacts made him a natural choice for a museum that constantly crossed borders to borrow, buy and loan art works. For ten years, beginning in 1973, a proposed museum show of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic archaeological artifacts from a museum in the disputed West Bank in Jerusalem was repeatedly postponed due to fears–stoked by Kissinger–of sabotage by Arab terrorists. On learning this, Koch wrote to museum chairman Douglas Dillon, lambasting him for giving in to “political hallucinations and speculative fears,” and pointedly mentioning the city’s $10.6 million annual subsidy to the Met and the size of its Jewish community. Not only was the cancellation promptly reversed, but henceforth, an unstated quota on Jewish trustees on the museum board was lifted. Koch told me that after this victory, he became a regular visitor to the great museum and a fierce protector of those city subsidies. How’d he do? Just great.

Anna Wintour a diplomat? That’s the subject of Jane Ridley‘s feature in today’s New York Post, in which I’m quoted recalling my favorite tale of Wintour’s wrath–the night the Rogues’ Gallery cover girl gave the deep freeze treatment to Giorgio Armani.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, subject of my book Rogues’ Gallery, has been sued for defrauding the public ever since the 1970s when it first introduced its Pay What You Wish But You Must Pay Something admission policy in contravention of its lease for its buildings and land, which are publicy-owned (as is its art, which is held in trust for the public). A press conference on the lawsuit is scheduled for this afternoon, but today’s New York Post already has the story and a response from the museum’s flack, who describes the suit as frivolous, ludicrous and outrageous, pointing to the fine print on signs over the museum’s ticket desks. The same flack called Rogues’ Gallery “highly misleading,” though the museum administration has never cited a single error or misinterpertation in the book. According to the plaintiffs, highly misleading better describes the museum’s signage. The press release on the lawsuit follows:

For Immediate Release
November 14, 2012

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM SUED FOR CONSUMER FRAUD, AND FOR CHARGING UNLAWFUL ADMISSION FEES IN VIOLATION OF ITS LEASE WITH THE CITY AND NEW YORK STATE LAW

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has been sued for charging unlawful admission fees and committing consumer fraud, according to a 44-page complaint filed with the New York State Supreme Court earlier today. An 1893 statute requires that the Museum, which receives millions of dollars in annual taxpayer-funded subsidies, remain open and free to the general public five days and two evenings per week. And the Museum’s lease requires that the free days include Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and legal and public holidays. But the Museum has been charging admission fees every day and evening. According to the Museum, the admission fee is merely “recommended,” but the complaint cites to a survey of more than 360 visitors to the Museum, and 85% believed that they were required to pay a fee to go inside.

The Museum charges $25 per adult for entry into the Museum. Consequently, a family of four is required to pay entry Fees up to $100. Although signs at the cashiers indicate in fine and tiny print that the Fee is “recommended,” few notice it, as the large bold-print references admission fees payable for adults, seniors and children. And, in any event, the Museum’s official policy is that, regardless of the signage referencing in small print that the fees are recommended, no one is permitted to enter without paying.

In addition, a half-dozen Museum-sponsored websites specify the admission fees and fail to mention the public’s entitlement to enter for free. As a result, people are defrauded into paying fees that, according to New York State law and the Museum’s lease, cannot be charged.

“It’s an absolute travesty,” commented Patricia Nicholson, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. “The Museum was designed to be open to everyone, without regard to their financial circumstances — a public library of art and culture to enrich the lives of the citizenry. But instead, the Museum has been converted into an elite tourist attraction to be enjoyed only by those who can afford to pay expensive and illegal admission fees.”

Michael Hiller, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, commented that the evidence of the Museum’s violation of New York law is a absolutely clear “The statute and lease require that the Museum be free of charge to the general public five days a week, but it’s the Museum’s policy that no one can enter without paying a fee. The Museum’s violation of the law and breach of the lease could hardly be more blatant. But more than the violation of the lease and statute, the Museum’s illegal admission fee policy violates the public trust.”

As for consumer fraud, Arnold Weiss, who also represents the plaintiffs, commented that “the survey erases any doubt that the Museum’s deceptive signs and websites are intended to mislead people, and they do just that.” Mr. Weiss also emphasized that “this is not a situation in which just a few people didn’t understand; the overwhelming majority of visitors, with degrees ranging from high school to post-graduate, and tourists as well as native New Yorkers, all think that they are required to pay fees to enter the Museum.”

According to publicly-available documents, the Museum has collected more than $600 Million in admission fees over the years. And that figure doesn’t even include the monies collected by the Museum from people who purchased ‘memberships,’ the principal feature of which (according to the Museum) is to avoid paying the admission fees — which the Museum isn’t allowed to charge anyway. Meanwhile, the Museum receives taxpayer funding, plus the use of the city-owned Museum Building and the land in Central Park on which it is situated, all rent-free.

The lawsuit seeks, among other things, an injunction preventing any further violations of the Museum’s lease and New York law, and the Museum’s efforts at deception, plus attorneys’ fees. Plaintiffs have also asked for an order directing the Museum to reopen the Central Park entrance, which was closed in an effort by the Museum to avoid duplicating the cost of staffing those who collect the admission fees which the Museum is prohibited from charging in the first place.

An exclusive story in today’s New York Post alleges that there is a secret deal between the Metropolitan Musem of Art and neighboring co-ops to “scale down big plans for the institution’s iconic plaza.” It apppears, however, that some of those neighbors are not going to lie down and acquiesce to any plan to turn that plaza into a food court. But those who forget–or don’t know–the past are, as the saying goes, condemned to repeat it. Such is the case with the museum neighbor who fumed, “This was a museum of the people. Now it’s the people versus this self-appointed group of elite people.” In fact, that’s always been the case, as this brief excerpt from my 2009 book Rogues’ Gallery reveals:

“The Metropolitan occupies a state-owned building sitting on public land, has its heat and light bills, about half the costs of maintenance and security, and many capital expenditures paid for by New York City, receives direct grants of taxpayer dollars from local, state and national governments, and for most of its existence has indirectly benefited from laws that allow, and even incentivize, private financial support in exchange for generous tax deductions. So it is clearly a public institution. But even though New York State has statutory authority to supervise the assets of charities—a vague but powerful standard—over the years the Met’s board has considered itself beholden to no one. It has functioned as a private society.

In the Metropolitan’s early days, that meant its wealthy and powerful trustees took a straightforward attitude of “the public be damned,” closing the museum on Sundays, for instance, even though it was the only day that the working class had free for leisure pursuits (and even though the trustees would sometimes unlock the place, Sabbath notwithstanding, for themselves and their friends). Over the years, that arrogance has been toned down, but it has never been entirely abandoned. Today the museum shames visitors into paying a $20 admission fee, even though its lease says it must be open free five days and two nights a week, and its own official policy is that anyone can enter for a contribution of as little as a penny. And although it promised, as part of the agreement with the city that implemented the 1971 master plan, to create open and direct access to the building from Central Park through two courtyards, those courtyards, now named the Carroll and Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court and the Charles Engelhard Court, remain shuttered to this day.”