Former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder’s ambitious plan to build a $100-million National Slavery Museum south of Washington is languishing amid tax bills that could force the museum site to be sold at auction, writes The New York Times.
The museum owes $215,000 in property taxes and fees dating to 2008 on the still-vacant 38-acre site in Fredericksburg, Va. Officials there said the parcel will go on the block if the bill is not paid in 30 days.
The museum listed $115,000 in assets aside from the land in its 2007 tax filing, the most recent. Its board no longer meets, and Mr. Wilder has not responded to inquiries about the project save for a February posting on his Web site in which he said the museum is not dead and artifacts donated to it are being kept safely in storage.
In other arts news:
• After losing more than $3-million in the past two years, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is mulling a ticket-price increase to get back in the black, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Flat attendance and a 60-percent cut in its state funds, from $2.5-million to $1-million, are the primary factors in the deficit, said Lawrence J. Tamburri, the orchestra’s president.
“We have to sell more tickets. We have to raise ticket prices. We have to get more individual contributions,” Mr. Tamburri said.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art drew nearly 5.7 million visitors in year ending June 30, a 40-year high and a 400,000 gain over the previous 12 months, says The New York Times.
The museum attributed the increase in part to blockbuster exhibitions on Picasso and the late British fashion designer Alexander McQueen, the latter drawing more than 500,000 people since it opened in May.
