The Metropolitan Museum in New York plans to reopen in mid-August, “or maybe a few weeks later“, with reduced hours and no guided tours to maintain social distancing, the museum said on Tuesday.
The institution, closed since March 13, is the first major museum in the city to announce a reopening date, while New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has yet to officially set a deadline.
Its plan calls for a reopening in four phases for each region of the state, the hardest hit in the country by the Covid-19 pandemic.
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The restart of artistic activities only intervened in the fourth and final phase. New York City has not yet been cleared to begin phase one.
A somewhat special birthday
In addition to the adapted hours and the absence of guided tours, the Metropolitan Museum will also not organize conferences or concerts until the end of 2020, in order to avoid gatherings conducive to the spread of the new coronavirus. .
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The reopening will mark the official start of the exhibition “Making the Met“(do the Met), which celebrates the museum’s 150th anniversary and was originally scheduled to open on March 30.
The museum also unsurprisingly announced on Tuesday the definitive cancellation of the Met Gala, New York’s social event of the year, which had already been postponed.
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