Secret Leaser! Mayor Smaug Cackles In Sky Above Met Museum As Tourists Shriek!

Artist’s Rendering

With 67 days left in office, Mayor Smaug is working his way down his hit list. He’s like Bill Clinton granting pardons but the opposite!

The latest victims: maybe… you? Yesterday the city issued an amendment to the Metropolitan Museum’s “lease” that allows it to charge a full admission, instead of a suggested donation. (The city did this with the Natural History museum as well.) We put “lease” in scarequotes because the actual document dates from 1878; no lease should be that long. In any event, since the 1890s, agreements required the museum to be open “free of charge” five days and two nights a week, meaning the museum was free to charge on other days. That changed in the 1970s, like everything else. But now that’s all behind us! You can bet Annette de la Renta and Mayor Mike hashed this out over a late night carbonara — and you can bet Henry Schacht and David and Julia Koch are thrilled.

What the Met will actually charge or not charge under their new lease amendment remains to be seen. But for now, all’s well that ends well! Suck it tourists, these markets are FREE!