We continued our whirlwind tour of east coast cities with a single day in Manhattan (we were at Croton Point Park for 4 nights, but we also spent one day north of the park and one day visiting the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island). Perhaps this means we should have devoted the time to seeing some things we’d never seen before (or at least that the kids had never seen before), but no one really wanted to skip another visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (plus Abe had never been), so we settled on that for the main event of the day.
I talked a little about taking the train from the station near Croton Point Park in my last post; it took us a little less than an hour to get to the Harlem 125th Street station, and it was easy to transfer to the subway from there to get to the Met (or it should have been. We had a slight navigation error that made it take a little longer).
The Met used to have a “pay as you wish” admission policy, but that’s now only the case for New York State residents and for students in New York, Connecticut,and New Jersey. Everyone else pays a mandatory admission fee of $25 for adults, $17 for seniors, and $12 for students (children under 12 are free).
On our first Met visit a few years ago, we just kind of wandered around aimlessly and looked at whatever we ran into. I think this is probably as good a strategy as any other for a first visit, but then we did the same thing, more or less, this time, and I wish we’d gone in with more of a plan. The Met is ridiculously, overwhelmingly big, and you could visit many times without seeing it all. And yet we saw a lot of the same stuff this time as last time. This was partially because we had Abe with us and were focusing on more kid-friendly exhibits, but it was also because we failed to plan. In retrospect, I wish we’d spent more time researching with the older kids so that they could have gone off on their own with a good plan while we explored with Abe. Ari, for example, studied AP art history last year and wanted to find some of the works he had learned about in class. We thought we could easily find a list somewhere online and just go find them, but it proved to be elusive in the moment, and we ended up spending a lot of time searching high and low for one particular painting only to find it’s not currently on display. Anyway–point being–not a bad idea to have some ideas in advance about what you want to see.
My older kids could spend days in an art museum, but my five year old….not so much. So we made a plan to check out some of the more kid friendly parts of the museum all together for awhile, then leave the older kids to explore some more while a grown-up or two took Abe to the playground right next door in Central Park. Where there is a squirrel sculpture:
Sometimes there are special programs at the Met for the younger set, but we asked and nothing was going on while we were there. There is a series of family guides that are supposed to be available at the information desk, but we didn’t see them there and the person at the information desk didn’t seem to know anything about them. This is another area where I wish we’d prepared better for the visit; I had a vague knowledge that guides like this existed, but I didn’t know quite where to look for them or what exactly to ask for. I hope everyone is finding this post on how NOT to visit the Met helpful!
But! We did see cool stuff! The Egyptian area is generally a hit with kids. And the armor is very cool:
My kids really wanted to see the instruments, where Gus geeked out over the horns:
Abe enjoyed this Chinese house:
Then Dave took Abe to the playground, and the rest of us just kind of wandered around and saw pretty stuff:
We even managed to actually get lost at the very end; we somehow ended up wandering the Frank Lloyd Wright area helplessly for awhile when we were trying to find our way out to meet Dave and Abe.
After the Met, we were supposed to meet up with a friend for the afternoon, but she was called away unexpectedly to deal with a family emergency, so we found ourselves with a few hours to fill. We spent them walking through Central Park:
And then taking the subway to the National Museum of Mathematics:
The name kind of makes it sound like some huge space, with exhibit halls full of staid displays about mathematicians through the ages, but in reality it’s a pretty small, hands on space with just enough to keep us busy for the hour or so we had to check it out before they closed. We were impressed with how it managed to appeal to our entire family, something that’s elusive and highly valued in museums with our big age spread. My father-in-law (who’s a mathematician and knows such things) tells me much of the action at the museum happens in the form of special events where they bring in outside presenters.
We got in for free through our ASTC science museum membership, but the regular admission price is $17 for adults, $11 for children, students, and seniors.
And, finally, dinner! Jeremy and Stephanie, from RV Family Travel Atlas, recommended Ellen’s Stardust Diner as an excellent, kitschy choice in Times Square, so we headed there…and we weren’t disappointed. Even after waiting in line for FOREVER.
The idea here is singing servers (and overpriced food), and the kids LOVED it. Especially Abe, who was utterly transfixed. I personally found it a little…loud, but I was glad we did it when I saw how much the kids got into it.
One guy sang “Georgia on my Mind,” which made us feel right at home. Another server had played Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast on Broadway for years, which, on one hand, shows you that you see people who can really sing here and, on the other hand, makes you want to discourage your kids from going into theater because one day you’re Lumiere and the next day you’re waiting tables again.
And by then it had been a very long day, with a LOT of walking, and we made one last trek through Times Square to Grand Central Station to take the train back to the campground:
Dave remembers our Manhattan day as one of his favorite of the trip, not because of anything in particular that we did, I don’t think, but because we spent so much time wandering all over the city, covering a lot of territory and seeing all kinds of different views. Probably the heavy dose of MATH didn’t hurt, either.
maybe you would like to pin this?
There is so so much in New York.
I would be terribly frustrated to see all those horns and not be able to play them, or at least hear them being played.
There is so much! He had his French horn along on the trip, so he could play it when he got back to the campground 😉
That would at least be some consolation. But not much. I still remember–my fingers still remember!–the time my piano teacher arranged for a group of her students to get to play a 16th C. harpsichord. <3