The ART of GIVING

This month, our columnist, DEREK C. BLASBERG, talks to AWAY cofounder and CEO JEN RUBIO about the free admission program she helped create at New York's WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, what it means to BUILD a PHILANTHROPIC LEGACY, and why ACCESS might be the greatest gift of ALL

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It's 8:00 p.m. on a Friday night, and I'm standing in line with a bunch of cool-looking downtown types waiting to get into a hot spot in Manhattan's Meatpacking District. And I mean all types: older people (my age?); younger people; gay people; straight people; people who represent a whole range of backgrounds, identities, and experiences-each one dressed better than the last, everyone in a festive mood. Through the window, I see a DJ spinning under neon lights and people holding beers.

No, this isn't a new nightclub or a casting for a Netflix drama about impossibly cool, sexy New Yorkers. I'm at the Whitney Museum of American Art's Free Friday Nights, a programmed art party open to all from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. (The neon lights above the DJ are Glenn Ligon's 2009 work Rückenfigur.) My tour guide/drinking buddy is Jen Rubio, the Away luggage cofounder, who, with her tech entrepreneur husband, Stewart Butterfield, split a gift to make Friday nights free at the Whitney for three years. (The other half came from fellow board member Paul Arnhold, an artist, and his husband, Wes Gordon, Carolina Herrera's creative director.) Inside, the place is packed.

Every exhibit is open, including the Whitney's groundbreaking Alvin Ailey show, where the Obamas spent their 32nd anniversary, along with works from the Whitney's permanent collection, which includes my absolute favorite painting of all time, Jasper Johns's Three Flags (1958). On the rooftop terrace, visitors sip cocktails and take selfies with the Empire State Building in the background.

"How incredible is it that this has become a real part of people's weekends?" Rubio says, beaming. We snoop on a couple who look like they're on a date.