Galleries From A to Z Sued Over Websites the Blind Can’t Use – The New York Times

Art & Design|Galleries From A to Z Sued Over Websites the Blind Can’t Use

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/arts/design/blind-lawsuits-art-galleries.html

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Galleries From A to Z Sued Over Websites the Blind Can’t Use

Credit…Grant Gold

By Elizabeth A. Harris

• Feb. 18, 2019

On Dec. 13, a blind Manhattan resident named Henry Tucker filed federal lawsuits against 10 art galleries, saying their websites were not accessible to people who could not see. The galleries’ names included Adam Baumgold Fine Art, Adelson, Agora, Albertz Benda and Acquavella.

The next day, Mr. Tucker and his attorneys moved on to the B’s.

For decades, lawyers for the disabled have used the Americans With Disabilities Act to force businesses to make their spaces more physically accessible, by adding ramps, widening doorways or lowering countertops.

But the steady migration of commerce and culture to the internet has given rise to a new flood of litigation, over the accessibility of websites to the visually impaired. The number of such lawsuits nationwide nearly tripled in 2018 [...]