Thursday, April 17, 2008

A possible Met future?

New York magazine has a long piece on John Sexton's plans for Abu DhabiNew York University.
"NYU was aware of our local culture and rules and guidelines, and our policies on Israelis or homosexuality were clearly not a concern for them," says Mubarak Al Shamesi, director-general of the Abu Dhabi Education Council, which is coordinating all the emirate’s university projects.
There's a reason why it's the second-tier brands in America that have chosen to take this devil's deal. For a flagship institution like the Met and/or Lincoln Center to even be considering it is mind-bogglingly shortsighted.

2 comments:

  1. Devil's deal? NYU is a great institution, and John Sexton has done a marvelous job at its helm.

    An expansion into Abu Dhabi would be a great idea.

    Let's not forget that it was glasnost that helped speed along the end of the USSR. Walling ourselves off from detestable political situations is hardly the answer to anything.

    Besides, there's not any place on earth we can go right now where the US is morally superior, what with our whole Iraq incursion.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, that's one on board. Now Gelb would only have to worry about every other potential Met patron and donor...

    The magazine piece comments show even more anti-expansion sentiment than I'd expected.

    ReplyDelete

Absolutely no axe-grinding, please.