NYC’s Public Library Systems Launch Culture Pass

With support from the Revson Foundation, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, and the New York Community Trust, NYC’s three public library systems  have joined together to launch Culture Pass, a city-wide initiative providing free access to 33 cultural institutions across the five boroughs to the millions of library card holders.

Through Culture Pass, participating cultural institutions will provide day-passes for library cardholders to reserve online—from computers at library branches, personal devices, or anywhere they access the internet—and then display the printed or digital pass to gain free admission to a specified museum, cultural heritage site, garden, zoo, or performance venue, with the option of bringing between one and three guests. Culture Pass organizations donate passes to the program on a monthly basis and are offered the opportunity to reach new audiences by reserving a portion of the passes for patrons living in underserved neighborhoods.

“This partnership between New York City’s three great library systems and its world-class cultural institutions is unprecedented and will reach into every community throughout the five boroughs,” said Julie Sandorf, President of the Charles H. Revson Foundation. “We are honored to support Culture Pass.”

For more details on Culture Pass visit culturepass.nyc.

Cultural institutions participating in Culture Pass, as of July 16, 2018, include:

  • Brooklyn Botanic Garden
  • Brooklyn Children’s Museum
  • Brooklyn Historical Society
  • Brooklyn Museum
  • Children’s Museum of Manhattan
  • Children’s Museum of the Arts
  • Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
  • The Drawing Center
  • The Frick Collection
  • Historic Richmond Town
  • International Center of Photography
  • Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum
  • Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art
  • The Jewish Museum
  • Louis Armstrong House
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • The Morgan Library & Museum
  • Museum of Modern Art, MoMA PS1
  • Museum of Chinese in America
  • Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
  • Museum of the City of New York
  • New York Transit Museum
  • Noguchi Museum
  • Queens Historical Society
  • Queens Museum
  • Rubin Museum of Art
  • SculptureCenter
  • Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian
  • Society of Illustrators
  • Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
  • Sugar Hill Children’s Museum
  • Wave Hill
  • Whitney Museum of American Art

The full press release is available here.

To read more about the Culture Pass, see below:

The New York Times

AM New York

New York Daily News

Wall Street Journal

NY Post

WNYC