Free Memberships Broaden Appeal of IDNYC

Mayor Bill de Blasio has built his administration on the promise of an accessible and affordable New York City. The arts got a taste of that promise through the city’s municipal ID card program, IDNYC.

The card was designed for people who usually can’t get a government ID, like undocumented immigrants. As of March, more than 800,000 New Yorkers signed up for the card. And over the same period of time, more than 350,000 cultural memberships have been redeemed.

But many of those people already have government-issued IDs; they got the new card because it offers free memberships at 40 cultural institutions across the city like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Tom Finkelpearl, Commissioner for the Department of Cultural Affairs, said the city worked hard to add the free memberships two reasons: First, the city wanted to make the arts more accessible to New Yorkers who might find the price of admission too expensive. The second reason was to reduce the stigma of getting a card directed, in particular, for residents who might not be able to get a government ID.

"The idea of attaching these fantastic cultural benefits to the card was to say everybody in New York needs to want this card,” he explained. “So it's not that ‘Hi, I'm undocumented, here's my ID card.’”

And that’s what appears to be happening. Residents from more affluent communities are signing up for ID cards and requesting free memberships. In fact, three of the more affluent neighborhoods in the city lead in the number of cultural memberships provided to card holders. For those who support the program, that’s a sign of success.

“A lot of those people signed up for a card because of cultural membership — so it has worked exactly as planned,” said Jimmy Van Bramer, a New York City council member and chair of the Cultural Affairs Committee.

According to data from the city, at the end of 2015, people living in the 10025 ZIP code (Upper West Side) redeemed 7,949 cultural memberships — the highest amount — even though only 7,849 ID cards were issued (ID holders can get memberships at multiple institutions).

That was followed by residents of Park Slope who obtained 7,827 free memberships compared to 6,242 IDs, and then Brooklyn Heights with 7,015 culture memberships compared to 4,810 municipal IDs.

In contrast, neighborhoods with large immigrant communities and lower incomes as compared to the city’s median income were more likely to get ID cards, but not cultural memberships.

Residents of Corona, Queens, had the highest number of IDNYC cards issued to residents – 25,367 people or nearly a quarter of the population based on the most recent Census figures – but only 2,309 cultural memberships were issued.

“The city could probably supply some additional marketing dollars to make sure that the word is out and getting to the neighborhoods that need more information,” said Karen Brooks Hopkins. She was president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music for 25 years and now is a senior fellow in residence at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Overall, though, she said the program has been enormously successful, even if wealthier neighborhoods are participating more.

“People who love culture are always going to step up and take advantage of whatever is offered to them, and that's good. The beauty of this program is, is that there's room for everybody.”

And government officials and representatives from many participating cultural institutions participating agree.

“A lot of folks who have redeemed could afford to pay for them,” said Van Bramer, “but there is nothing wrong with that.” He said there are many thousands of families who can now afford to attend events or go to museums when previously they couldn’t because of the cost.

“Whatever number that is, it’s a good number,” he said.

An examination of the top 25 ZIP codes with the highest number of cultural memberships finds that 30 percent originated in neighborhoods where incomes are lower than New York City’s median income of $52,737.

Finkelpearl said, “There are parts of the City where there are just lots of cultural participants and that’s expected. But again, looking at those communities like Corona, Jackson Heights, Sunset Park, and Washington Heights, those are huge, and there are large numbers there as well.”

For the museums, botanical gardens, zoos and performing arts centers providing the memberships, the reaction to the program has largely been positive. Some said it’s been great or that the program has been a “home run,” bringing in new audiences. Others cited the fact that people who might not have been familiar with their institution now knew more about it. And, of course, there are the thousands of potential future members who might be willing to pay when their free membership expire.

But organizations did say they were caught off guard by the volume of applications. And one criticized the program saying that essentially people who used to pay were now looking for something for free.

There’s also been a financial and administrative burden in processing thousands of new members. One institution that saw its membership more than double said the cost to administer the surge in IDNYC members was between $150,000 and $200,000. Managing that meant that, at times, staff had to be shifting away from revenue generating memberships. And it did notice a drop in paid memberships over the course of the year.

Other institutions also responded by diverting staff to focus on handling the new IDNYC members. One paid interns to help, while another found outside funding to pay a part-time position to process and handle the requests from new members.

To help defray the costs for administering the program, New York City's budget for the next fiscal year, which the City Council passed on Tuesday, includes an additional $10 million in funding to help pay for various initiatives, including the IDNYC program.

With additional reporting from Charlie Herman and Rebeca Ibarra.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify details about the recently approved city budget and to include additional data and comment from Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl.