Nine Holiday Activities for Kids in New York City
New York City is a magical place any time of year but the holiday season is an especially wonderful time to visit with children. There are the famous window displays and decorations on every street corner and building, and countless pop up shops and restaurants, but most children will tire of just “looking” pretty quickly. This week, we’re sharing (early because tickets for many events just went on sale and will sell out quickly!) nine holiday activities for kids in New York City and we promise adults will want to do them, too!
10 Rainy Day Activities in Manhattan Teenagers Will Love
New York City, and specifically Manhattan, is a magical place any season and in any weather and for any age. But our recent storms in the Northeast inspired a reader to ask us for recommendations for rainy day activities in the Big Apple. And knowing that she has teen-aged kids, we offered suggestions that we thought would be most engaging for that age. This week, we’re sharing those 10 activities that will (in theory) especially appeal to the teenage crowd.
City Guide: 25 Places in Manhattan Kids Will Love
We are fortunate to live an hour outside of New York City and we take advantage of our close proximity as much as possible. There are so many family friendly places in the 22 square miles of New York City that our list could potentially go into the hundreds! For this week, however, we’ll stick with 25 places we have explored over the past decade, including a few spots that spill over into the Bronx. We’ll acknowledge some gaps in this list- the Metropolitan Museum of Art and American Museum of Natural History are missing from this list- but we have not been to some very popular spots in over a decade (all the more reason to rerun ASAP!) For organizational purposes, we’ve listed sites by location, starting with the Financial District and working on our way up island through the Upper East and West Sides all the way to the Bronx (we had to include a couple of our favorite spots, which happen to in the Bronx- see #23-25)
The Paley Center for Media in Manhattan
First opened in 1976 as the Museum of Broadcasting, the Museum of Television and Radio changed names and moved to the heart of Midtown Manhattan in 1991, followed by another renaming and reopening as the Paley Center for Media in 2007 to honor William S. Paley. The owner of several prominent radio stations in the 1920s, William S. Paley created a larger network that became the CBS Network in the mid 20th century.
15 Interactive Ways to Explore the Museum of Broadway in New York City:
We were thrilled to be invited to the brand new Museum of Broadway in New York City this past weekend. The 26,000 square foot, three floor museum opened in November 2022 and is already receiving a lot of positive buzz. The Museum of Broadway is designed to take guests through a chronological history of “the Great White Way” (the nickname for Broadway because of the bright lights of the theater marques), with three major segments: The Map Room, The Timeline, and The Making of a Broadway Show. All three parts include tons of original costumes, scripts, daily itineraries, mock ups of sets, film footage of interviews with casts and crews, awards, and highlights of popular shows from each era. Guests begin by walking up three flights of “backstage stairs” to the dressing room area and following a path through three floors of exhibits.
Museum of Illusions and Little Island in New York City
This weekend, we FINALLY made it back into New York City for the first time in 16 months! We’re lucky enough to be able to drive 65 minutes and end up in the heart of Manhattan, or, in this case, the Chelsea/ Meat Packing District west side of the island. We’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about some outdoor experiences, including Little Island which just opened last month, and wanted to check them out. When we saw that the Museum of Illusions was less than a half mile walk from Little Island, we had our morning set.