Category: Things to do with kids: Museums, Exhibits & Art Galleries

There is something for every sports fan in the 45,000-square-foot Sports Museum of America that opened in May 2007. The museum celebrates the legends of yesteryear and the stars of today in almost every sport imaginable, including football, figure skating, and extreme sports. It houses more than 600 artifacts, 1,100 photos, 20 original films, and 24 interactive exhibits. One of the interactive exhibits allows you to experience the exhilaration of cars whizzing by on a NASCAR racetrack. Another lets you share the sensation of a 120mph slap shot from the perspective of a hockey goalie. children of all ages will enjoy the Dare to Dream: Dreaming Big exhibit where they can learn about the childhood of professional athletes like Derek Jeter, a shortstop and captain of the NY Yankees; and Jeff Gordon, champion race-car driver. Female athletes and pioneers are celebrated in the Bille Jean King International Women’s Sports Center, and the Heisman Trophy, an annual award for the outstanding U.S. college football player, has a permanent home here. Visit, play, learn, and enjoy.

Contact no: (212) 747-0900

Location: 26 Broadway, New York City, NY 10004

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This elegant museum, just across the street from upper Central Park, aims to teach visitors not just about the past and present of New York, but also about its future. The city is shown to be a living organism, not just a collection of skyscrapers and bridges. Most weekends bring spectacular dance or musical performances from around the city and the world, from church choirs to fire eaters. This would be the right place to inspire in your child a sense of the beauty, color and life that make up this city.

Contact no: (212) 534-1672

Location: 1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, New York, NY 10029

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Before the skyscrapers, the stock exchange, and discount department stores, downtown New York was once the country’s biggest shipping harbor and leading port, the same “battery” Ishmael briefly described in Moby Dick. As with most big industry, the shipping is now done in New Jersey, but the South Street Seaport Museum preserves this major part of nascent New York. The giant antique ships in the dock, assorted galleries, and colonial buildings take you inside the golden age of sail and steam. You can browse the historical maritime objects for hours while your children excitedly barrage you with questions about the authentic scrimshaw, ship plans, paintings, maps, toys, and signal flags. You might want to brush up on your Patrick O’Brien novels, or at least rent “Master and Commander” for an educated edge.

Contact no: (212) 748-8600

Location: 207 Front Street, New York, NY 10038

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Although it’s home to more somber exhibits like “Slavery in New York,” and various monuments to 9/11, this museum still knows how to have fun. With regular family programs that include classic board game playing, drumming, Afro-Caribbean dance, and poster-making, the New-York Historical Society offers parents and children a chance to work together on a variety of projects, all with New York-infused themes. Keeping with the overall aim to cover the social and political histories of New York, “Creative Campaigning” is a workshop where you can help your children design their own buttons and posters for a mock political campaign, using the “Suspicious Truths” exhibit as a guide.

Contact no: (212) 873-3400

Location: 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024

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Walk around the areas below Canal Street and take in Chinatown, the most robust ethnic neighborhood in New York City since it was settled in the 1800s. Few people, including children, know the particular hardships and history of Chinese immigrants in the City, and so the MoCA was founded to set the story straight. A modest-size museum in the heart of Chinese New York, the MoCA houses historical artifacts, photos, art, and interactive displays and maps. A theater in the building showcases traditional and contemporary performances, a great respite from Chinatown’s famously crowded streets.

Contact no: (212) 619-4785

Location: 70 Mulberry Street, New York, NY 10013

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Most art museums aren’t really set up for kids’ enjoyment. This happy exception focuses on material made with kids in mind. Exhibits focus on the influence that cartoonists and comic artists have had on our culture in general. You can expect to see a mix of art you haven’t seen since your own childhood lovingly preserved and framed. Your child can expect to see many of her own favorites treated similarly. You can try to explain the political themes that run through Pogo to her while she tries to help make sense of Spongebob Squarepants for you. Good luck!

Contact no: (212) 254-3511

Location: 594 Broadway, New York, NY 10012

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Located in the neighborhood it honors, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum offers a major slice of immigrant life near the turn of the century. The museum is a hands-on, living showcase of life among Jewish, Italian and African-American immigrants. You are shown around by a costumed interpreter who greets you as if you were newly arrived immigrants and shows you how to adapt to a new life in America. Every item in the apartments is true to the period, and kids are allowed to touch, pick up, and examine whatever they like; a major plus for those who get bored at stuffier exhibits. Kids whose ancestors were, at one time, immigrants will learn about their own families’ pasts.

Contact no: (212) 982-8420

Location: 108 Orchard Street, New York, NY 10002

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At the Rose Center, inside the Museum of Natural History, you can visit the world-renowned Hayden Planetarium, which some consider the museum’s crown jewel. This theater shows specially produced astronomical movies on its domed roof. There isn’t a bad seat in the house, so just lean back in a comfy seat, and you’ll feel like you’re on a family vacation hurdling through space.

Contact no: (212) 769-5100

Location: 15 West 81st Street, New York, NY 10024

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One of the city’s most iconic museums has a few family programs that keep culturally curious children intellectually and artistically satisfied. Regular classes and workshops cover an array of diverse topics you would expect from the progressive Guggenheim people – from neo-Impressionism to digital art – all employing the museums vast facilities, galleries, and even its Mac lab.

Contact no: (212) 423-3500

Location: 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10128

Learn more here.

 

This is never the same museum twice, as the exhibits frequently change throughout the five floors of well thought-out, interactive fun (it’s all very educational, but in such a subtle way that it will fly under kids’ radar). PlayWorks, probably the coolest attraction here, is meant for your youngest child. children can drive a giant fire truck, paint on the large mural, and crawl through a super-fun obstacle course. There is a bevy of other creatively stimulating activities where you and your little genius will draw, sing, and dance the day away. It’s a perfect day indoors during New York’s commonly inclement weather. Again, if your little ones are very little, the talking baby dragon that eats alphabet letters is a must-see.

Contact no: (212) 721-1234

Location: 212 West 83rd Street, New York, NY 10024

Learn more here.