Free For All: The Fight to Reclaim NYC's Free Admission Rights

Talk Highlights:

• Uncover the forgotten promise, buried in original park plans, which led to free rent for cultural institutions, such as The Met, the Bronx Zoo, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and free admission for all New Yorkers
• Go behind the scenes of a grassroots public policy effort, Free Admission Campaign, that strives to codify, enforce, and make publicly available the facts about New Yorkers’ right to free admission to 17 of the city’s most iconic cultural park institutions
• Gain expert insights from Founder Pat Nicholson, who has worked on the project for over two decades, following the paper trail from the 19th-century to the present day
• Hear from legal advisor Michael S. Hiller and find out the status of a bill that would affirm the initial free admission rights promised to New Yorkers
• Find out how you can be part of this movement and have your own questions answered

About the Free Admission Campaign:

The Free Admission Campaign was founded in 2012 by native New Yorker, Pat Nicholson. In 2015, Pat was a successful co-litigant in a lawsuit leading to the changing of deceptive signage regarding The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s pay-what-you-wish policy. Additionally, in 2023, the campaign helped introduce a study bill to the state legislature that asked state lawmakers to review the original founding laws of these institutions to uncover and affirm the initial free admission rights promised to New Yorkers.

The campaign aims to make publicly available the facts about New Yorkers’ reciprocal right to free admission and popular instruction to 17 of the city’s most historic cultural park institutions. The campaign has been featured in Forbes, City & State, New York Daily News, amNY, Next City, and more.

In this live virtual talk, we'll talk with Nicholson and legal advisor Michael S. Hiller to uncover the inspiration behind this effort, the latest updates, and how you can get involved! Guests will also have the chance to answer their own questions during a Q&A.

About the Speakers:

Pat Nicholson is the founder of Free Admission, a campaign to compel New York City leaders to enforce existing laws and contracts providing New Yorkers the right of free access to a boroughs-wide Park Education Campus consisting of 17 parkland museums, zoos, botanical gardens, performing arts and science centers and aquarium. A born-and-bred New Yorker, Pat currently is the only person who has amassed the facts about, and an archive documenting, New Yorkers’ free access and popular instruction rights to these institutions – a cause she has worked on for more than two decades.

Pat has wide-reaching knowledge of real estate, civil service, and academia. Prior to founding Free Admission, Pat began her career after high school using her secretarial skills at a major textbook publishing house, state and federal governmental agencies and Columbia’s Graduate School of Business. Attaining her business degree from Marymount Manhattan College in her early 30s, Pat was hired by Chemical Bank’s real estate division – Pat’s next career step following working for her future husband, a real estate developer who also raced and bred thoroughbreds. After their marriage and the birth of their son, her family located to the Upper East Side for the independent schools. Later, Pat registered at Columbia University’s Teachers College and, during her study, joined the Institute for Learning Technologies, researching how wide-area network technology could bring university curricular and scholarship to K-12 schools while providing parents and guardians a way to be proactive in their student[s] learning, even if unable to be physically present when schools required.

One of five children raised in an Irish-Catholic home in New York City’s public housing, Pat grew up in a civil service household, which gave her the keen sense of justice that has informed her life’s work.

Michael S. Hiller is the founding and managing principal of Hiller, PC. He has built a career on fighting for his clients against large institutions, multi-national corporations, and state and local governments. And he has enjoyed extraordinary success. Designated the “protector of the little guy” by the New York Law Journal, Michael believes that the law should be deployed to protect the public good and to vindicate the rights of those wrongfully aggrieved.

Michael’s successes have been well recognized over the years, and include his having been named a SuperLawyer for the New York Metropolitan Area for the last 14 consecutive years. Michael is admitted to the Courts of the States of New York and New Jersey; the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York; the District of New Jersey; the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; and the Supreme Court of the United States.

Before becoming an attorney, Michael was a professional musician and composer. He has performed at multiple venues throughout the U.S., including Union Square Park, MCU Stadium, Liberty Science Center, The Bitter End, Red Lion, and Dylan’s.