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In the recent season opener of "Sex and the City," Carrie Bradshaw, aiming for a perfect New York experience, headed on a Thursday to the Guggenheim Museum - only to find that she'd come on the one day of the week the museum is regularly closed.
Bummer for Carrie. But hardly a full picture of what can await visitors to New York's cultural institutions these days. Hit with cutbacks in city funding, a loss of tourism following 9/11 and a decline in private and corporate donations because of the faltering economy, arts and culture organizations have reduced their programs and services as they try to ride out the storm.
Some places have cut their hours. Others have fired staff or failed to fill vacancies. Exhibitions have been delayed by a year or two, or completely cut from the schedule. Community outreach programs have been trimmed. Marketing and advertising budgets have been slashed.
And those efforts might still not prove enough. Although a budget cut of 5 percent announced in June was met with a sigh of relative relief by arts groups - especially in the wake of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's initial proposal to slice 15 percent of their funding - more cuts are expected by fall, and institutions that rely on city dollars are continuing to tighten their belts.
"Everyone is dealing with the problems in their own way, based on the variables that affect their institution," said Karen Brooks Hopkins, chairman of the Cultural Institutions Group, whose 34 members are in buildings or on land owned wholly or in part by the city. Members of the CIG - which range from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Bronx Zoo - got a total of about $100 million from the city in 2001.
Hopkins also is president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which recently laid off its vice president of finance as a cost- saving measure. In addition, she said, BAM has reduced some free and low-cost music offerings, cut back on advertising and otherwise lessened the need for staffing: "Instead of keeping two doors open, you keep one door open, so you can eliminate one type of guard."
Like other cultural institutions, "we're just trying to hold on," Hopkins said. "But...