Like every other New York institution, the museum, which showcases the art of Latino, Caribbean, and Latin American culture in its location across from Central Park on Fifth Avenue, had shut down operations in mid-March. Its annual May gala, which normally brings in about $1 million, was canceled, and event rentals for its newly restored theater space were out of the question. Its store and cafe were closed.
“Our fiscal year begins in July,” says Patrick Charpenel, the museum’s executive director, “and we were trying to make the right kind of adjustments—to be realistic.”
Those adjustments included shaving its annual budget from about $6 million to $5 million, an action that dramatically reduced the scope of some forthcoming exhibitions, moved others wholly online, and cut planned programming.