Children’s Museum of the Arts

This place rules. Was hesitant to rate it highly because would rather selfishly reduce traffic for when we go.

If you have little kids it’s a place to take your kids. The staff extremely friendly and patient. Activities and things for kids.

Came here with the kids being that everyone was raving about it.
Disappointing is an understatement.
They have very little to offer other then a boring claybart class which has 2 instructors for 10 kids. Kids got very bored by the time they finished the product.
Music studio sounds great but when we got to our scheduled time the guy said to us you’re too late.
Another painting room which was cool except the instructors warent showing the kids how or what. No suggestions. Your basically on your own. The paint cans were full of paint that clearly needed to be cleaned. Basically I would never come back here.
I can pay the same price and join a local art shop and fair much better and the kids wouldn’t go bored.

A dream for kids and parents… Imagination and creativity breeds fulfilled lives. Love what you’re doing!

Ball pit permanently removed. Price increased to $ 12.
I wish they stayed open later on weekends. Posted closing time is 5pm, but activities shut down at 4:30. One more hour would be great.

We LOVE this place! Art + activity is all here. Those age 2 – 16 are the ideal age range to enjoy what is offered at this new (ish) museum. I have visited with children spanning the ages of 3 to 7, and they’ve all clearly enjoyed their time here. So have I!
Getting into creating at the «clay bar» with my child was worth the wait. The exhibits, freedom to create via découpage, glue, etc… examine kid-​friendly exhibits, and finally the mayhem of the giant-​ball pit were a hoot! Find the schedule for the ball pit; it’s an age-​related activity — the very young ones get their own time spot, as do the older kids at a separate window of time.
If the weather is fine, take the short walk west to the Hudson River Park, an attractive part of the area for something else to do. Voila; a fine day out and about!

My son just summed up our visit perfectly. «The stuff they have to do here is fun but there’s not enough of it and you have to wait so long to do anything.» We’ve been here a few times now and there never seems to be enough staff helping to keep things organized or helping the kids figure out what they’re supposed to do. And this last visit especially, the few staff people we did encounter were at best not helpful and at worst, a little mean. The line/​wait for the clay bar is ridiculous (I waited in line twice for 20 minutes each time — the first time the list filled up before I even got to the front — only to wait another hour and 15 minutes for our scheduled time). The two craft tables they had set up in the main area were crafts that easily took 30 minutes to complete, so the turn over was very slow. The only thing my kids didn’t seem frustrated by was the jumpy balls area upstairs but we didn’t come to an art space to jump in balls. For the price of admission for our family I can just buy a bunch of art supplies and create art on our own time at home.

Nice space, just hate that they use paint that is not completely washable.
Went there for a birthday party where they did the Jackson Pollack type painting activity so paint was thrown all around. At the party we were told that the paint was completely washable. Got home and found out that was NOT true. Washed my clothes and my kids clothes three times, used shout after the first time and the paint still wouldn’t come out.
Called to complain and was told that they tell the hosts to let guests know it would be a messy activity and to wear appropriate clothes (my host did not). No offer at all to right the situation. There goes $ 200 down the drain.
Thanks for nothing.

We LOVE the drop-​in musical storytime and art workshops with Annie! She is multi-​talented (musically/​vocally, theatrically, artistically) and so wonderful with the children. If we lived locally, we would absolutely sign our daughter up for weekly classes. Today Tom accompanied her and they were both fantastic. The story turned out to be a book they published themselves! Pretty sure I had just as much fun as my daughter did.
The gallery itself is small, so come for an organized workshop. Icing on the cake — after class, the kids get free reign of the Ball Pond.
This place is a gem. If you’re in the city with young children, don’t miss it.

This is a bad place to go to If your kid is 7+, and there’s not lots if things to to, the only things worth going there for is the clay bar and media lab ! It took us only 3hr max to go throw the whole place (if you do all the activities) not for kids older than 7

We came at 4 pm and could only stay an hour, but the staff was incredibly nice and patient with my toddler and he had a blast.
Will definitely return!

Perfect place for an intro to art for my son. He loves to color, paint and build. The workers were super helpful and patient. The clay bar was cool but i would suggest it for kids 6+. The wee art room is where they get to go crazy with the paint and markers. My son loved the plastic magnet things where we attempted to build something. He had a blast in the ball room. Every person of every age could find something to enjoy here

WORST Birthday Party Experience Ever!

I love this place. Calling it a museum is kind of a misnomer: it is a wonderful place for your kids to do art in many different mediums. Painting, clay, goopy stuff, glue art, magna tiles, paint pens, pencils and so much more. Specific directed projects or free form activities. It’s a great activity for a solid 2 hours with 2 – 5 year old, perhaps a bit longer for older kids.
My only beefs with the museum: the weekday hours are TERRIBLE. Really really awful. «Awful enough for me to take away a star» awful. The average age of kids here was 3 – 5, and most parents I spoke with agree that the 12 pm start during the week is ridiculous. If it were 10 am? We’d absolutely become members. Because it isn’t, we won’t, and because pre-​entry activities still cost a fortune even if you are a member (a mere $ 5 discount is somewhat insulting when membership fees are so high) we definitely aren’t going to join. I hope the powers that be at the museum take note: you’d have a greater number of loyal members if 1. the doors opened earlier to general admission during the week and 2. if the «members only» discount on drop ins was far larger than $ 5 off.
It is great that now, they have a 50% discount for those who have memberships at other children’s museums, so keep that in mind of you plan to go (they don’t publicize this widely).
My son asks to come here every single time we have a weekend day free and with good reason: it never disappoints. It’s a great place for creative discovery and stimulus without messing up your living room.

Awesome way to spend a day. There are a good amount of interactive stations where kids and color, paint and use clay.
Will be go back again soon.

Kids were so so on it. Not a lot of activities for the Kids. Long wait for most of the activities. Cant say i would go back.

Pretty small museum more ideal for a child who could do a lot of arts and crafts. They have easels and lots of random crafts. Think admission of $ 11pp is overpriced for the 13 rooms it has. They do have some structured class for younger kids I might check out in the future. Thursday it is open til 6pm and from 4−6p it’s pay as you wish. Layout of the place is odd. There are stairs and no strollers allowed. The ball room could be better monitored. There are monitors in the Wee art studio but no one monitoring the Ball room where kids were nearly double the 2 – 4 age group being rough. They break up the hour into 20 min chunks where kids in each age group could play and not get trampled. But it’s all about the parents reading and obeying the signs. Def could see some accidents and fights breaking out there.

Every so often I babysit for diff families, which has allowed me to come to this place on various occasions with children of different age groups. Personally, I think this place is great! This is not a typical museum where children linger around observing artwork but can actually use their artistic side to create different hand on activities. The child has to be interested and willing to take advantage of all the stations. If they fail to show interest then they won’t benefit from this place at all.
I particularly love how everything is well organized and there is a variation of activities provided. Stations range from a clay section, where a child is helped step by step to create diff animal figures. (Def a child favorite). To a painting, a bouncy area, and diff art activities that change every time I’ve been here. Some stations have a sign up sheet, others are based on the open seats available but all areas have stationed employees ready to work with the child.
There is a $ 10 admissions fee for both adult/​child. As summer vacation is approaching I recommend any child to be taken here during a lazy weekday. Don’t forget you can take everything the child makes home!
PS: I recommend starting in the painting area so by the time you go home the art work has dried off. Bags are provided for each child’s art work.

Best place to do art with kids in New York!
The morning drop in classes offer free play for kids to play with play dough, markers, dot pens, Legos, building blocks, magnet tiles, collage and painting. They finish with a 40 minute music, drums and story. The kids always have fun.
Out favorite is the clay bar where we are taught step by step how to create different clay creatures. Each week we plan what our clay project is going to be.
If you have active kids there is also a ball pond for kids to jump around big exercise balls in a safe way
All in all we love it here and come once a week. It’s amazeballs. Seriously.

I read a few of the other reviews of this museum on Unilocal and I believe that there could have been more art displayed to call this an art museum. I also believe that this is a wonderful place to take a young child or group of children. Whenever I have taken a young child to a standard art museum I have to spend most of my time corralling said child and neither of us truly enjoys the museum experience. I love the open/​studio/​activity based approach for this museum. I truly felt this was a museum with children and their enjoyment as the priority.
Having stroller parking is also a wonderful feature for this museum. We were worried that we would not be able to bring our stroller in or where would we store it. We were able to easily access our stroller whenever we needed to. I appreciate that families and parents are considered in so many ways. Another great feature is the quiet room that I suspect parents can use to just «take a moment» from all the noise.
Now about the «art». I saw many beautiful forms of art in several different media from various children throughout New York City. I found this work to be very inspiring. My niece that I took could not get enough of the artwork. She loved making art and expressing herself visually, and viewing the artwork especially the animations in the animation room. She also loved running all over the place and playing on the slide, and the ball room.
I would definitely return to this place. I would give them four stars because I feel they hit upon everything I needed for my young child. The only thing that could use some improvement is that there were not as many structured activities for two-​three year olds as far as I could see. It seemed that most of the structured art activities were for four and five year olds. But other than that we had a great time.