Last-Gasp Barnes Rescue Attempts, Continued (and UPDATED)

In the continuing effort to convince the Barnes Foundation that staying put in Merion could be financially viable, the town's commissioners passed an ordinance last night to allow an increase in visitation from 400 per day, three days a week, to 450 visitors per day, six days a week. Some 100 elementary and secondary students would also be admitted daily.

In a letter today to Barnes president Derek Gillman (whose name is therein misspelled), commissioner Brian Gordon also helpfully suggests:

Visitation would be increased by allowing ticketing to occur at the Philadelphia Museum of Art or the new Please Touch Museum at Centennial Hall in Fairmount Park. Ticketing at these sites would encourage visitors to see those sites and then travel a short distance to the Barnes in Merion via shuttle bus.

Nice gesture, good ideas. Only trouble is, the current Barnes board, against the wishes of the town, Montgomery County, and CultureGrrl, doesn't want to do any of this. They'd simply rather be in Philadelphia.

UPDATE: Guess I was right. Here's Gillman's official response to the latest Merion move:

Although this ordinance will permit the Foundation to obtain revenue from additional visitors, that revenue will not be sufficient to alter in a substantial way the adverse economic situation that caused our board of trustees to seek permission to move the gallery art collection. It will not come close to providing the additional revenue sources that are essential to the financial health of this and all not-for-profit educational institutions.

The Barnes continues to move forward with the selection of an internationally acclaimed architect by the end of the summer and the forthcoming preparation of the site on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

It is the hope of the locals that their late-found spirit of cooperation, with its attendant financial benefits to the Barnes, has sufficiently altered the desperate situation that made Judge Ott rule as he did. They may yet try to test this in court.