Who’s Leaving the Metropolitan Museum? Official List of Retirees

Okay, I'll start you off with with one name:

Everett Fahy, chairman of the department of European paintings, 22 years of service

CultureGrrl has just obtained the complete list of the 96 Metropolitan Museum staffers who accepted the museum's recession-driven offer of voluntary retirement. (It's not 95, as reported in the Met's press release of June 22.)

My list comes from an unimpeachable source---the museum's own Met Matters (above), its biweekly newsletter for its staff (not released to journalists). The Met's press office had declined to give me any of the names of those who would be leaving the building.

In their "Special Message" on the cover of the newsletter, Tom Campbell, the Met's director, and Emily Rafferty, president, invited "all staff to offer more personal good wishes and thanks by joining us at a coffee reception in their honor on Tuesday [tomorrow], June 30, from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. in the Temple of Dendur in the Sackler Wing."

Let's end the suspense. Here's a roster of 22 of the more prominent names who joined Fahy on the retiree list (which also includes people in such positions as assistant travel coordinator, housekeeper, senior store sales person and associate accounts receivable coordinator):

Colta Ives, curator, drawings and prints, 43 years
Christine Lilyquist, curator in Egyptology, 38 years
Susan Allen, associate research curator, Egyptian art, 16 years
Kevin Avery, associate curator, American painting and sculpture, 20 years
Lucy Belloli, conservator of paintings, 27 years
Takemitsu Oba, conservator of Asian Art, 31 years
Sondra Castile, conservator of Asian art, 31 years
Richard Stone, senior museum conservator of objects, 34 years
Rudolph Colban, conservator of objects, 40 years
Tina Kane, conservator, The Cloisters, 21 years
Margaret Lawson, associate conservator of paper, 33 years
Barbara Ford, research curator, Asian art, 28 years
Johanna Hecht, associate curator, European sculpture and decorative arts, 39 years
Elizabeth Milleker, associate curator, Greek and Roman art, 24 years
Virginia-Lee Webb, research curator, arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, 34 years
John O'Neill, publisher and editor-in-chief, 30 years
Mahrukh Tarapor, associate director for exhibitions and director for international affairs, director's office, 25 years (continuing through next May as "advisor to the director")
Doralynn Pines, associate director for administration, director's office, 31 years
Jeff Daly, senior design advisor to the director, facilities management, 29 years
Herbert Moskowitz, chief registrar, 38 years
Nick Cameron, vice president for construction, 30 years
Hilde Limondjian, general manager, concerts and lectures, 48 years

And then there's my personal favorite, Hilda Rodriguez, senior production coordinator in the communications office, who for 17 years was unfailingly friendly and helpful in satisfying all my requests for materials and catalogues (even anticipating what I might want before I had asked).

And finally, adieu to that perennial thorn in the Met's side on cultural property issues, Oscar White Muscarella, senior research fellow, ancient Near East art, 44 years.

What we still don't know, and may never know, is the names of those who got the unsolicited and unwanted pink slips.

Is this what it's felt like to work at the Met recently?