Matthew White <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>>While preparing a reply to John Strand I reread the _Baltimore_  article
in Museum News while I kept up on the development of this thread and as
my mental processes trudged along it occurred to me what it was that
made
that article so disturbing.  It was that it depicted the Baltimore as a
city with those same rose-colored glasses and overly optimistic
visitation/revenue forecasts the rest of you attribute to individual
museums...<snip>

Matthew, I'm glad you said it, and you've said it well--I hope you send
your comments to "Museum News" because they need to hear it there, too.
I've been following the stories of the Baltimore City Life Museums and
other planned museums in the Baltimore Sun, too, not to mention the
city's fiscal woes, and my response to that "Museum News" piece was that
there were no outright lies, but some disturbing omissions.  There are
some exciting things happening at Baltimore museums (and alternative
spaces, too), but whose interest does it serve to ignore the dark side
of the picture?  Around the time that the article came out, the Walters
Art Gallery had taken the unusual step of stationing people inside the
entrance handing out fliers urging citizens to lobby their city council
representatives to help save cultural funding, which the mayor had
threatened to drastically cut.  The author couldn't have known that at
press time, but the city's financial problems are not a new story.

I have read with interest the perceptive comments of others on this
topic about how museums get into these predicaments.  I started thinking
about how this thread raises questions about growth.  Museums and museum
directors make their reputations on growth--more museums, major
acquisitions, new wings, etc.