According to Bloomberg’s Farah Nayeri, British Museum director Neil MacGregor was approached to be the next head of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and has preferred to keep his London job for another five years, the British Museum said. At a press breakfast, chairman Niall FitzGerald said that MacGregor had agreed to lead the museum through 2012. MacGregor took over in 2002. Referring to the Met, British Museum head of press Hannah Boulton later said, “He was approached by them, he had a conversation with them, but in the course of that conversation he ruled himself out of the job of running the Met.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art did not immediately respond to a request for comment. MacGregor—whose museum today announced a record of over six million visitors in the year ended March 31—has been cited by the press as a possible successor to the Met's retiring director, Philippe de Montebello. In interviews, including with Bloomberg, MacGregor has said he is eager to stay in London. Asked today whether he was offered the Met job, MacGregor said only that the Met's search committee had “a very large number of conversations with people who were not candidates” about the Met's future.

In other news, Steven McElroy reports in the New York Times that two Brooklyn arts organizations, BRIC Arts Media Brooklyn and Urban Glass, will be gaining space in the building they share in the BAM Cultural District thanks to a makeover of over seventeen million dollars, the groups announced. With the renovation of the basement and first floor of the Strand Theater, BRIC Arts, which presents visual and performing arts programs, including the “Celebrate Brooklyn” concert series, will gain twenty thousand square feet for a gallery and performance space. Urban Glass, a glassmaking studio and school, will get gallery and retail space as well as a walk-in workshop. “It’s the first project that is really advancing the goals of indigenous arts groups that are already in the BAM Cultural District,” said Leslie Schultz, executive director of BRIC Arts. The center, designed by Leeser Architecture, will be paid for by the mayor’s office, the city council, and the office of the Brooklyn borough president.