| Edification value |  |
|---|---|
| Entertainment value |  |
| Should you go? | |
| Time spent | 28 minutes |
| Best thing I saw or learned | 
|
The best thing was a juxtaposition of Jordan Nassar’s white-and-blue embroidered designs and Joseph Shetler’s complex abstractions of blue pencil. I liked each, and they proved great complements to one another.Lillian Wald founded the Henry Street Settlement in 1893 to assist, educate, and care for the poor of the Lower East Side of Manhattan. During its 125 years, it’s been responsible for many civic-minded “firsts” in New York City. These include the first nurse in a New York public school; several early playgrounds; summer camps; the visiting nurse service; low-income mental health services; and programs surrounding the arts.
Henry Street Settlement’s Arts for Living Center, founded in 1975, evolved into today’s Abrons Arts Center. Although the Abrons Center is primarily known for theater and performing arts, its rather unpleasant, semi-brutalist brick building also houses space for temporary art exhibitions.
The Children’s Museum of the Arts is my first review of a New York children’s museum. While I like to think I’m unusually immature for my age, I feel I should have an actual member of the intended audience help calibrate my impressions of these places. And so I enlisted the aid of an eight-year-old friend, whom I’ll call “Zed,” and his mom, who kindly visited with me. Thanks!
This place is primarily an activity center; I’m almost a little skeptical of calling it a “museum.” But it does have some art installations. Indeed, the open connector space between the various activity studios housed an exhibit on called “Ornamentation and Other Refrigerator Magnets” by Ellen Harvey. I found it quite clever, although I think it’s a little more to a grown-up’s taste than a kid’s. For example, there’s a witty display of books riffing on modernist architect Adolph Loos’s lecture on “ornament and crime,” perched on the fanciest shelves imaginable.
I’d wager that most kids who visit this place don’t give the art a look at all. But engaging a kid in a conversation about stuff that’s fancy versus stripped down, and why some things are very decorated versus not so much, probably works well. It’s straightforward, and most kids will have some experience of that contrast, and possibly even an opinion about it.
The 9/11 Tribute Museum occupies the second floor of a nondescript office building just a few blocks south of the World Trade Center complex. While its role is now overshadowed by the massive memorial and museum to the north, it manages to differentiate itself, offering a distinct voice in commemorating the worst day in New York’s history (so far).
What can I say about the Museum of Sex? It’s fun. The gift shop is hysterical — if you’re at all prone to blushing, it will make you blush. It’s immensely positive, and in a weird sort of way, innocent, maybe even willfully naive about its topic.
It’s always hard to judge a museum like the Pratt Manhattan Gallery based on a single show. But it’s conveniently located, and a nice space. I’m pretty comfortable asserting that if you happen to be around West 14th Street and you feel like seeing some contemporary, academic art, whatever’s on view will hew to one of the four themes above, but it’ll likely be interesting and worth the time as well.
Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum offers visitors to its Times Square location a thoughtful meditation on the transience of celebrity — and its sometimes hefty toll — in the contemporary media maelstrom.
Leffert Pieterson, a Dutch farmer, obtained a tract of land in the village of Flatbush in 1687, and built himself a house there. That original Lefferts homestead was burned by the Americans just before the Battle of Brooklyn, to prevent the British from seizing and using it. However, Pieter Lefferts, in the fourth generation of a family that as some point reversed names, rebuilt a fine farmhouse for himself and his family in 1783. 
