As my plans evolve, the next thing to consider is exactly how much time and money this project will entail. I’m on a bit of a budget these days, and visiting all 188 (and likely a few more) museums sounds like a spendy project.
Let’s think about time first. At a very rough guess, I expect I will spend four days a week on this project, and let’s say I can manage to visit 4-5 museums a day. On some days, particularly in the dense zones like the “Museum Mile” stretch of Fifth Avenue I’ll probably manage more than that. But on average, just to give myself a sense of timing, I think those are reasonable estimates. Doing the math yields a range of 9-12 weeks. That’s a lot, and a lot of museums in a short amount of time. But it’s not, like, a lifetime. And I’m giving myself plenty of days off.
On the money front, I have to confess when I was doing the list cleanup last week, I didn’t pay very close attention to admission fees. But a lot of the places on the list are free. Happily I’m a member at most of the big institutions—the Met, the Frick, MoMA. That will save some money. But I do want a sense of budget. I’m going to start with a sense that about 40% of the places on the list are free, and the remaining 60% charge an average of $8. That’s, um, huh. That’s about $900. Okay. Sometimes math is not my friend, exactly, but it’s better to have a budget up front than to be surprised at the end. I’m going to hope I’m overestimating somehow. And find free or pay-what-you-will days for as many places as I can. It’ll be interesting to see how the accounting does work out.
And, in a brainstorm, I will get an IDNYC card, which includes free admission or membership to 44 cultural institutions. (It’s really a great deal, highly recommend the small amount of time investment required to anyone who lives in New York.) I just need to actually get the card in the mail and I’m good to go.