Six months ago a group of New York art patrons, chafing at the timorous pedantry of the Metropolitan Museum's painting department, dug down into their pockets, hired a suite of rooms in Heckscher Building, and opened the Museum of Modern Art (TIME, Sept. 16). The public responded. For the past month 1,500 people a day have trooped through the little museum, trod on each other's feet, peered over each other's shoulders at Derains, Picassos, Chiricos, Matisses. The Heckscher Building's elevators, already crowded, bulged with Modern Art lovers to the annoyance of other tenants. Last week, embarrassed at their own success, the trustees of the Museum of Modern Art announced that, they would charge 50 cents admission every afternoon from noon to 6 o'clock in an effort to discourage attendance.
¶ At the annual trustees' meeting of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, President Robert Weeks De Forest announced that his institution had run up an impressive deficit of $883,384.35 during th past year, explained that this deficit, was caused by the enormous increase in the Museum's administrative expenses, asked for larger endowment funds in order that funds intended for purchasing works of art might not have to be diverted to help pay the Museum's upkeep.