RSS FeedNewseum Early Reviews
Yesterday WaPo offered their look at The Newseum (555 Penn Ave, NW) which is set to open to the public this Friday, April 11. PQ Living readers don’t seem to be taking to the price of admission as the “Never – it’s too expensive” response holds a slim lead for the current poll asking when readers would schedule a visit. WaPo balked also saying the admission fee “feels stiff.” The 42 Bus also has an in depth write up with nice pictures you’ll want to check out. We will all have our free opportunity on Friday to visit the Newseum and come to our own conclusions.
At Sparkly Newseum, The Glory Of the Story Goes Above the Fold – [WaPo]
Newseum: Noble, Costly Addition to DC’s Museum Scene – [The 42 Bus]
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Comments
I went to a pre-opening reception there last week. Its certainly a very nice building and the predominance of glass makes it very light and airy.
However, I couldn’t help asking myself…..why does the Newseum exist?
Omari: You had me on your side in the beginning…I totally agree that $20 is not unreasonable for a good museum experience. Most museums do charge fees, the Smithsonians are a wonderful exception.
BUT…you totally lost me at “you get what you pay for”. Are you serious!? The Smithsonian museums house an invaluable collection of treasures and wonderment. I’m not at all a fan of the new art at the Hirshhorn but they also house some of very important paintings from the past like Bacon, De Kooning, ec. And, the rest of the Smithsonian Institutions…I mean really, ‘you get what you pay for’? I beg to differ – and I hope lots of other folks agree with me on that.
I admit I was a bit thrown by the price tag, too, but if I’m objective I have to agree that we’re spoiled by our free museums (both in terms of price and in their truly amazing collections, even if some of the facilities could use a little work). $20 isn’t out of line with other new facilities–the expanded MOMA and the Denver Art Museum are both $20 and Atlanta’s High is $18. Even the Smithsonian’s small Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum in NYC is $15. For that matter, the much less ambitious Spy Museum is $18 and Madame Tussauds is over $20.
Anon: Concur totally. Also, don’t forget the totally free National Gallery of Art, the Archives, Holocaust Museum, etc.
Omari: If you “get what you pay for” and it costs nothing, does that mean you get nothing? You can’t take pleasure in something you don’t pay for? Some of the greatest things in life are free. I don’t necessarily appreciate all the Smithsonian’s stuff, but they certainly have a huge amount of things that are interesting and enlightening and beautiful. Learn to appreciate the simple pleasures in life and you’ll have that much more money left over to spend on the things that aren’t free.
I recall when folks thought that admission to the Spy Museum was steep, but the museum has been highly successful. They always have long lines.
I, too, went to the pre-opening reception last week and thought that for all you get, 20 bucks is nothing. They also have many attractions to entertain young people and kids, so like the Spy Museum this is not primarily an adult venue.
I’ll go back a couple of times and am pondering whether to buy an annual pass for $75. It’s an awesome museum and I commend the visionaries who conceived this new space as well as Polshek Partnership Architects.
I actually got into the museum on March 30 for one of their limited-access previews. The building is absolutely beautiful, but there’s no way I’m paying $20 to get in again. The museum was desperately short on unique content, and even shorter on content that one had to see in person to appreciate. I found the computer-heavy setup suprisingly easy to use, but the computers just further emphasized how unnecessary it was to present all this stuff in museum form, when for 1% of their budget they could have built an equally sophisticated website.
More museums/tourist attractions means more PQ tax generated dollars means more successful restaurants. So we have to give directions to a few more people. We’ll live. I’m going to the Newseum on the free day this Saturday.
I went to a free preview tour in mid-March, and I agree, I probably wouldn’t pay $20 to get in there again. Good points: The 9/11 area was amazing. The kids interactive game area had a fun Be-a-Reporter set where they tape you and you can see your news reel on the Newseum website. And the 4-D tour was a cute little kick! But Tom was right, there really isn’t anything in there that you have to see to truly appreciate (save for the Ground Zero artifacts). On a related note…I have yet to eat at the Source. Any opinions?
This is just a “McMuseum” brought to DC by the McNewspaper dude. It’s an ugly building – reviews were uniformly negative. There is little content there – it’s just like the newspaper [USA Today]. As for “you get what you pay for” – DC museums are one of the many exceptions to that “rule”. Yes, there are long lines at the Spy Museum – the tourists pour off their buses & stand in line – there & at the Archives, which is a mundane museum but apparently a must-do for high schoolers.
This is great for DC residents – our treasures [the MAA & the Portrait Gallery, the National Gallery, etc] are less crowded & the sales taxes from the hoosiers go into the city coffers. win-win, again.
The Source is nothing special – expensive, with a Puck-designed menu, but just an above average restaurant. In food as in much of life, one rarely gets what one pays for.
Not sure I would classify the Archives as a “mundane museum,” but I do agree that high schoolers like to visit there.
The National Archives building is one of the gems of DC! It holds the documents that actually contain the First Amendment! Something the Newseum will never be able to match.
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Come on, it’s $20. You pay half that to sit in a dark room and watch a film. This is a live experience in a huge building. $20 is not unreasonable for that. Maybe the free museums in DC have conditioned people to expect any museum to be free, but the free Smithsonians have taught me that you get what you pay for.