| Edification value |  |
|---|---|
| Entertainment value |  |
| Should you go? | |
| Time spent | 52 minutes |
| Best thing I saw or learned | Any good children’s museum needs a some quiet spaces to balance the rambunctious ones. Bronx Children’s Museum, has named one of these quiet spaces Sonia’s Room. As with so many museum halls and galleries, it’s named after someone, though in this case not a plutocrat or gajillionaire donor. And, actually, not one person but two. Two of the most prominent supporters of the BxCM happen to be named Sonia. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is one. Sonia Manzano, actor and author, is the other. “Sonia Who?” you’re probably thinking. You know her, though. For the past half-century and more, she’s played Maria from Sesame Street.
It’s just a room (a nice room!). I didn’t even take a photo of it. But think about these two Sonias. One shaping the laws of the country and the other an unfamiliar name but someone who everybody who grew up with a TV in the last 50+ years knows and loves. Any room that brings those two Sonias together is a good room. |
A Power House Museum
The Bronx Children’s Museum (BxCM for short) occupies the second floor of a castle-looking, century-old brick building in Mill Pond Park, a, skinny stretch of land sandwiched between the overpass of the Major Deegan Expressway and the Harlem River.
The building has a fascinating history, so I’m going to digress for a minute. Mill Pond Park, on the bank of the river, exists on the site of the former Bronx Terminal Market, which opened in the 1920s as one of the city’s main wholesale food markets. The Power House, built in 1923, generated electricity to provide refrigeration for the market. So, the fact that it now houses a museum makes it a sort of sibling to the Tate Modern in London.
Like so many things in the Bronx, Bronx Terminal Market went into decline, rendered obsolete by the larger and more modern Hunts Point Market. This entire area fell into disuse and decay. Its rebirth happened because of nearby Yankee Stadium.
When the City firmed up the plan to build the new Yankee Stadium (it opened in 2009), it set aside $64 million from the project to build Mill Pond Park on the former market’s riverfront land. Almost $14 million of that funding went to restore the Power House, which today houses a tennis center, restrooms, and office space. And it also provides the home for the Bronx Children’s Museum.
A Nomadic Museum Puts Down Roots
The Bronx Children’s Museum was founded in 2005. For the first five years it lived a nomadic existence, putting on events and doing community outreach. A conceptual museum, rather than a physical one. It graduated from there to being a mobile museum-in-a-bus, and then in late 2022, after over a decade of planning and development, it opened in its permanent home in the Power House.
BxCM occupies over 10,000 square feet on the second floor. Its design follows the modern aesthetic of high ceilings and exposed ductwork, with large windows looking out at the river, and abundant amounts of beautiful blond, knotty, engineered wood that forms interior walls and, in places, floors and ceilings as well. The spaces are curvy and flow organically, defining areas without dividing the space. Doors and walls close off a few rooms (like Sonia’s Room and classrooms), but mostly visitors can see the whole space from any point in it.
Every corner of BxCM is designed to engage and delight. Even the stairwell, which is bright and lively, and the restrooms, which pay homage to the Bronx River… I imagine using the bathroom there feels a bit like peeing outside).
Arguably, I didn’t see the museum at its best, visiting after hours on a Friday afternoon. John Boudreau, BxCM’s Director of Strategic Partnerships & Branding was kind enough to give me a private tour. For my past children’s museum visits (Manhattan, Staten Island, Brooklyn), I’ve borrowed friends’ kids, but nobody was available for this visit. BxCM has strict and totally understandable rules: neither unaccompanied adults nor unaccompanied children are allowed. 
That said, I didn’t have a hard time imagining the place buzzing with young ones. If I’m honest, having it to myself, not filled with noisy, sticky little monsters, was fine by me. I am deeply grateful for the tour, and I felt lucky for the time talking with John about the purpose and role of children’s museums generally, as well as the role that this specific one plays for its community.
John also told me that at the end of each museum session it holds a parade. All the visitors march through the space to say good-bye to it. I am a little sorry I didn’t get to see one of those. And I sort of wish the Metropolitan Museum of Art would adopt the custom.
The Space
BxCM uses its curvy spaces well. One section focuses on sciency stuff. It includes a few small critters in aquariums, and a build-your-own beaver lodge, since beavers once lived on the Bronx River (and occasionally still do). The biggest and fanciest exhibit presents a river in miniature, with actual water. Cloud shaped fixtures rain water down to a long, winding table where kids can learn about canal locks, build bridges, and float boats downstream to the ocean. I wanted to play with it very much.
Another space replicates elements of a Bronx neighborhood, with a casita, shop facades, a vegetable garden, and a “book bodega.” Playing store is a common feature to children’s museums. It’s odd to me, though there’s nothing wrong with preparing for a job in retail.
Other spaces encourage kids to stretch their creativity. An enchanted garden has costumes for pretend and storytelling. An artist’s studio recreates the actual studio of children’s book illustrator C.G. Esperanza. (Esperanza also did the art for the stores in the neighborhood.).
And of course,, there are also those quiet spaces, like Sonia’s Room, and a dedicated space reserved for toddlers and very young children, who may not be ready to navigate waterways or operate a retail establishment.
Books Abound
Throughout the whole museum, books abound. Sonia’s Room, the young kids’ space, other nooks and corners all are stocked with them. I appreciated how much this museum stresses the value of sitting down and reading — or being read to. John Boudreau observed to me that the Bronx had no dedicated children’s bookstore until the Book Bodega within the museum opened. He also said that BxCM has given away over 5,000 books since opening.
Like all children’s museums, BxCM has to speak to kids directly, but also to parents and caregivers. Each section of the museum includes ideas for “Play” “Learn” and “Go” geared for adults. They suggest things kids can do in the space, things they can learn there, and then other places in the Bronx or around the City to see the ideas in action. And, it almost goes without saying, all the museum’s signage is bilingual English and Spanish.
Should You Visit the Bronx Children’s Museum?
For a Manhattanite, the Bronx Children’s Museum is not the easiest place to get to via mass transit. If you have a kid, or you are a kid yourself, is the Bronx Children’s Museum a place worth visiting?
I think it’s well worth a visit. The design, the way it executes its mission, its love for its young patrons and empathy for their parents and guardians all impress. Like the Bronx Museum of the Arts, it welcomes people who may not think museums are for them. John told me that some people bring their kids weekly, or even more often. Though I am not in BxCM’s target demographic, I’m still glad that it exists to make its young visitors more aware of the nature and cultures of the Bronx, of New York City, and of the world.
Finally, just south of the Bronx Children’s Museum is the future home of the Hip Hop Museum. That institution should open sometime in 2026. I’ve been excited about it for years! I’m not sure it’ll make a strong double-bill with BxCM, but I bet the two neighbor museums will devise awesomely creative joint programs.
For Reference:
| Address | 725 Exterior Street, 2nd Floor, Bronx, New York |
|---|---|
| Website | https://www.bxcm.org/ |
| Cost | General Admission: $14 for adults, $8 for kids |
| Other Relevant Links |
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It’s a unique hybrid of art deco and Egyptian Revival, complete with an awesome, streamlined, funeral barge.
An assortment of display cases feature Jewish ritual and cultural objects, organized largely by type, with helpful explanations for those not conversant with them. I expect most Hebrew Home residents would have more than passing familiarity with Jewish rites and tradition. I appreciated that the curators include rare random visitors like me as part of the intended audience.
If you’re looking for Judaica, there are better and more convenient institutions to visit. However, the collection gains unique significance by virtue of its location. Jewish or not, if you’re planning to grow old someday you might find it worthwhile visiting the place, the art, and the residents.
The Museum of Bronx History occupies the 1758 Valentine-Varian House. Ten years younger than the 
Both New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers alike tend to think of the Bronx as entirely, unremittingly gray: paved urban overdevelopment at its very worst. In reality, the Bronx features large expanses of green.
The wall text observes that since the 1954 Hague Convention, walking off the battlefield with lost coin collections is no longer Kosher. So it’s lucky Fordham acquired its when it did.
Tucked away in the main library at Fordham University’s Bronx campus is an unexpected little museum of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art, which opened in 2007. William and Jane Walsh donated their collection of about 270 objects to the school, the thought being that having a small museum of classical antiquity close at hand might inspire students pursuing a liberal arts education.
As a Columbia alum, I’m slightly jealous. I can imagine the resonance of reading Sophocles, Thucydides, or Cicero in the presence of objects from the cultures that shaped those works. Then again, our library is 
The Fordham Museum offers a quiet, competent display of an interesting collection in a beautiful academic setting. It’s great if you like communing with art solo: a kid studying was the only other person when I went. And a guard popped in briefly to make sure I wasn’t pilfering votive objects.
Baby Bootlegger was a 1924, 29-foot 10-inch speedboat with a 240 horsepower engine. She was designed by George F. Crouch, built by Henry B. Nevins of City Island, and owned by Caleb Bragg. She won the Gold Cup in 1924 and 1925 and I’m sure no rum was ever run in her.
In addition to various books, copies of Yachting magazine going back to the 1930s, and neat ship models, the library currently houses a temporary show of local artwork memorializing the City Island Bridge, recently torn down.
Then again, I have to say much of the collection feels random and not very important. For example, the museum has an array of outboard motors that look like they date to the 1940s-1960s. Whose outboard motors were they? Are they historically important for some reason? Who made them and why? There’s a case of arrowheads. A bunch of old bottles. Old cameras. Nothing feels…documented. The artifacts kind of tell a City Island story, in that they all presumably were used there at some point. But they don’t tell it in coherently. And they crowd out things that would give a better understanding of the island’s people and times.
Long ago (1654) and far away (under an oak tree on what is now the frontier of the Bronx), a, Englishman named Thomas Pell signed a treaty with the local Siwanoy/ Lenape Indian tribe. He gained ownership of either 9,166 acres (City of New York, Friends of Pelham Bay Park, other reputable sources) or 50,000 acres (Bartow-Pell Mansion printout, Wikipedia) of land. While his descendants sold off the massive holding over time, in 1836 Robert Bartow, scion of the Bartow-Pell family, bought back part of the original estate and started building a fine country house and working farm on it. In 1842, he and his wife Maria Lorillard Bartow, their seven kids, and assorted Irish servants moved out from the filth and hubbub of New York City. The family resided there for over 40 years.