At the end of this month, James Wood leaves as director of the Chicago Art Institute. One thing he wishes he could have done during his time there? Drop the admission charge. “I still have this idea that in the best of worlds it would be awfully nice to have no charge for a museum. It is an important piece of our cash flow so it’s not something under present circumstances that one could do without. But there’s still a certain intimidation factor, and particularly for what I’ve called our local citizens, anything you can do to encourage people to drop in and use the museum on a regular basis is desirable.”