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.
10 Galleries Kids Will Love at the Cloisters in New York City
The term “cloister” refers to an open courtyard, usually found in the center of a religious monastery or convent. Located in Fort Tryon Park in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, the Met Cloisters are an extension of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that showcases European medieval art and architecture. There are a dozen distinct areas that include 20 galleries and gardens spread throughout the four acre space. The museum was built by architect Charles Collens and opened in 1938. Many of the artifacts and structures, which date back to the 12th through 15th centuries, were saved from various churches, monasteries, and abbeys throughout Europe and recreated throughout the museum complex. There are several stone and wood sculptures, panel paintings and tapestries on display throughout galleries that are meant to recreate the feeling of being in a medieval European monastery. The four cloisters were originally created in France, bought by art dealer and sculpture George Barnard in the early 1900s, and later bought by John D. Rockefeller and donated to the museum.
10 Behinds the Scenes Tours Kids Will Love
I’m “back” from all of our virtual tours from the past month- we figured it was safer to stay home and explore places online than in person. If you missed them, here are the links to our curated lists of virtual tours for National Parks; art museums; children’s museums, zoos, and aquariums; and Disney related activities.
While my family is still staying home as the country slowly starts to reopen, we’ve been reminiscing about past trips and many themes have emerged. We’re written themed posts before, like our posts on Indoor Fun in New England, East Coast Cities with Nearby Neighbors, Private Homes We’ve Toured, Sports Halls of Fame, and Free Things to Do in New England. Some new themes have recently emerged and today we’re sharing a post on “inside scoops” of famous locations and companies. We love learning about how a place works and seeing the behind the scenes stuff that most people don’t get a chance to see. It has recently become more popular for places to share behind the scenes access, even if guests cannot physically go inside the manufacturing plant or production studio.