Culture Pass Gives 70,000 New Yorkers Free Access to Cultural Organizations in its First Year

The New York City Culture Pass—a collaborative effort between the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), the Revson Foundation, and New York City’s three library systems—provides city residents with a library card free access to more than 50 cultural institutions, including the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art.

The Culture Pass initiative, which just completed its first year, has been enthusiastically embraced by New Yorkers. According to a press release issued jointly by the New York Public Library, the Brooklyn Public Library, and the Queens Public Library, the initiative provided more than 70,000 passes from July 2018 to July 2019. The release also announced that 17 new institutions would be joining the access initiative, including the American Museum of Natural History, an SNF grantee.

“For many of us, a library card is the first membership—the first key—we truly have ownership over, granting access to amazing worlds of knowledge and exploration right in our own backyard,” said SNF Program Officer Alex Simon-Fox. “Culture Pass extends the magic of the library card in giving New Yorkers access to some of the finest cultural and educational institutions in the world, with that same sense of opening up new possibilities right here at home. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation could not be prouder to be a part of the project.”