Gotham Diary:
At the Museum
9 May 2011
As Kathleen put it to Will at lunch yesterday, “You are probably the youngest person to have paid three visits to the Museum.” Who can tell? I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there are several kids Will’s age (16 months) who have been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art a lot more often than he has. We can’t be the only folks to have discovered what a child-friendly place the Museum is.
Who’d ‘a’ thunk it? When Kathleen and I were Will’s age, no one would have dreamed of taking us to a museum of any kind. It might well have been prohibited (as indeed it still is at the Frick). Then, too, there were none of the vast interior courtyards that abound at the Museum these days, none vaster than the plaza surrounding the Temple of Dendur — a bit of Central Park under glass, really. Kids seem to be just as comfortable running around in it as they are on the other side of the huge window, and nobody minds.
The guards certainly couldn’t be more welcoming. Kathleen says that they’re nice because Will is a good boy. Even though Will is a good boy, I can’t agree. It would mean that the guards were sizing kids up one at a time and giving those who are well-behaved special treatment. Too much work! It’s my hunch that the guards actually prefer children. They take up so much less room, and they never try to take flash photographs.
You may wonder why I’m publishing the image below. There are several reasons, but the most powerful one relates to why it makes me so happy, as best I understand it. I look at the picture and I see a boy impelled by curiosity to go off on his own. It’s true that, in the very next shot, he turns around and summons me with an extended hand. But his instinct is to take off first and to look for support later; he doesn’t doubt that he’ll have it. (Whenever he approached a flight of steps, he reached out for a hand.)
Coming up: the museum on the other side of the Park, where the dinosaurs live. Saving for a rainy day: the Guggenheim spiral. Watch for us!
