Carnegie museums end late Thursday hours

After a year-long attempt to introduce Monet, Warhol and dinosaurs to Oakland’s night life,… After a year-long attempt to introduce Monet, Warhol and dinosaurs to Oakland’s night life, the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History suspended their Thursday evening hours as of Dec. 26, 2002.

The Museum of Art originally offered evening hours as part of its 2001 exhibition, “Light!,” changing its closing time from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursdays to accommodate work and school schedules, Museum of Natural History director Bill Dewalt said in a press release. But low attendance and financial concerns caused directors to return to the previous schedule for 2003.

“We saw how the numbers were able to grow,” said Tey Stiteler, spokeswoman for the Museum of Art.

Stiteler said attendance rose from an initial 32 attendants to nearly 1,000 in the last week of the exhibition. This increase facilitated the continuation of the art museum’s Thursday evening hours through 2001 and 2002. In addition, Stiteler said, the Museum of Natural History expanded its schedule to include Thursday evening hours as well.

“We didn’t really see the numbers grow with any significance. They never equaled the level of that last week of the ‘Light!’ exhibition,” Stiteler said of the Thursday night attendances.

“We had to look at our operating budget very seriously,” she said. “The attendance that we were achieving could not justify the expense of keeping both museums open.”

The museum hopes to reinstate evening hours “as soon as possible,” according to Museum of Natural History spokesman Dan Lagiovane.

“Bringing back evening hours is a very attractive idea for us,” Stiteler said, “but we don’t see doing it in the foreseeable future.”