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QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, August 26, 2021 Page 20
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Don’t tell kids they’re learning by Michael Gannon
ready for Climb It can go to TotSpot, specially designed for children under age 4. “One of the things we saw with Covid was About seven miles east of the Queens border, children can climb through a three- that so many kids were inside where physical dimensional maze; don firefighters’ gear; and activity was limited in a lot of cases,” Mangan see an airplane owned by Charles Lindbergh, said. “They really, desperately wanted physias well as the Long Island-built aircraft and cal activity, so Climb It has been a huge, huge machines that took men to war and to the hit.” And she said no one comes to the museum moon and brought them back safely. The place is Museum Row in Garden City, without stopping by the Bubbles exhibit. “It’s LI, home of the Long Island Children’s Muse- one of those galleries where kids can see their um, the Nassau County Firefighters Museum parents play and realize that ‘Oh! Mom and and Education Center and the Cradle of Avia- dad were kids once too!’” The museum will be closed between Sept. tion Museum. They make for a great day trip. All are 9 and 23 for its annual fall fix-up, when it does within walking distance of each other off necessary repairs, painting and maintenance. Charles Lindbergh Boulevard, and the tickets It will reopen Sept. 24 Tickets are $14 general admission or $13 combined are less than one would spend on for seniors 65 and over. No adults are permitthree museums or possibly two in Manhattan. “Family-friendly and family-friendly pric- ted without children. Hours and tickets are es,” said Maureen Mangan, director of com- available online at licm.org. A short stroll to the east brings people to munication for the Children’s Museum. the Firefighters MuseThe LICM is a recipient of um, where Executive the National Medal for MuseDirector Alana Petrocelum and Library Services. li said fun can be a vital Mangan said it is fully open tool in passing on the and both the staff and their very serious message of visitors are longing to get back fire safety. with each other. “It’s fun and kids can “The Children’s Museum is Family-friendly learn,” Petrocelli said. really designed to allow every“We’re all about fire body in the family to have Museum Row safety and everything in fun,” Mangan said. “And the the museum is interacexhibits are designed with tive. So while they’re multiple ages in mind so that playing they’re learning children can naturally grow about fire safety. through the museum. What “We have trucks for the kids to sit in. We they might have done as a 3-year-old toddler they can still enjoy when they’re 7 or when have gear for them to put on. We have plenty of kids who just want to do that all day, and they’re 10 or when they’re 12.” The museum’s most popular exhibit is that’s just fine with us.” One interactive display allows children to “Climb It,” a maze of curved, wavy platforms suspended by wires that allows children inside pretend to be firefighters putting out a blaze. “So it’s a fun place, and we hope children to choose multiple paths to multiple levels. walk away with something that could save They must be as least 42 inches tall. “It’s amazing as you watch kids navigate their lives someday,” Petrocelli said. And, she through it,” Mangan said. “They have choices reiterated, children are the biggest advocates to make in terms of which way to go. But it’s for the museum’s mission of fire safety. “Parents, unfortunately, are busy and can also one of those things where children learn ‘I can do this.’ You watch them as they help forget,” she said. “It gets put on the back burneach other during the process.” Those not yet er. The kids are the ones who are going to go home and say, ‘Hey, mom, I saw this at the museum. Do we have an escape plan? What’s the escape plan? Do we have a meeting place? What’s the meeting place?’ “These are the things you need to know, and the kids are the ones who carry the message home,” she said. “They’re going to say ‘Mom, did we change the smoke detector batteries? Hey, dad, do we have smoke detectors in all our bedrooms?’” Tickets are $5. Further information on the museum can be found on its website at ncf iremuseum.org or by calling (516) 572-4177. While the Wright Brothers may have been from Ohio and launched their first fight in North Carolina, the Cradle of Aviation Museum, located next door, is appropriately named Climb It, a multilevel maze, is one of the pop- for an institution on Long Island, according to ular activities at the Long Island Children’s museum President Andrew Parton. “We have 75 planes and spacecraft, cockPHOTO COURTESY LI CHILDREN’S MUSEUM Museum. Editor
The Nassau County Firefighters Museum and Education Center offers interactive — and fun — PHOTO COURTESY NASSAU COUNTY FIREFIGHTERS MUSEUM lessons on fire safety. pits for kids to crawl into, and there’s a lot to see,” Parton said. “And the thing is it’s all connected to the region. Everything here is from Long Island and the Metropolitan region. We don’t have a single aircraft that wasn’t either built here or where there wasn’t some sort of milestone here. Everything has a connection.” The crown jewel, he said, is an actual lunar module from NASA’s Apollo moon landing program. All were built at Grumman in Bethpage, LI. “We have one of the three that were built to go to the moon that didn’t because the program was cut after Apollo 17,” Parton said. “We have Apollo 18 here, and it’s fully loaded and on display, the only one of its kind. The other two [lunar modules] are at the Kennedy Space center and the Smithsonian ... And a lot of our docents who work as guides in our galleries, especially our space gallery, you might actually meet someone who worked in that program.” The museum also owns an LI-built Curtiss Jenny World War I biplane, the first plane owned by Charles Lindbergh. And while the Smithsonian has the Spirit of St. Louis, in which Lindbergh became the first person to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean — taking off not far to the east of the present-day Roosevelt Field mall — the Cradle of Aviation does have one of two sister ships built at the same time. “Ours was used in the movie starring Jimmy Stewart,” Parton said, referencing the 1957 film “The Spirit of St. Louis.” The museum’s World War II gallery features the carrier-based Grumman Wildcat fighter plane as well as its replacement, the Hellcat. There also is a Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber and a P-47 Thunderbolt fighter built by Republic in Suffolk County. Referring back to the space gallery, Parton said an entire section is dedicated to “The Future is Now,” inspired by the present and future plans to head to the moon and Mars; and recent successes in civilian travel involving Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and SpaceX. “We’ve built a Mars landscape where you
can use augmented reality, an app you can download on your smartphone and drive a rover across our landscape. And ,when you get home you can take your Mars rover that’s in your smartphone and drive it in your living room if you want.” The museum’s newest exhibit is an arcade of the old stand-up video games — no quarters necessary — that one would play before they could be played on phones and TV sets. “It’s an exhibit as opposed to an arcade in that the original was created on Long Island at the Brookhaven Labs,” Parton said. “The game Pong was originally created as an Air Force project. They were working with radar and fell into creating this silly video game.” Admission is $16 for adults and $14 for seniors age 62 and over and children between 2 and 12. There also is a theater and planetarium where one can attend shows for $10 without admission to the museum galleries, or for an additional $5 on a combination ticket with the galleries. The arcade exhibit is a separate $10 charge, but does not require one to pay for gallery visits. More information is available Q online at cradleofaviation.org.
Apollo 18 never went to the moon. But its lunar module is at the Cradle of Aviation Museum. PHOTO COURTESY CRADLE OF AVIATION MUSEUM
