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The East Village Mamele
Museums are hit and miss with young kids. Josie, at 6, was enthralled by the Superheroes exhibit at the Met last summer, but Maxine, 3, was less enchanted. (She hung from my arm and wailed, "I have to leave this boring place or I am going to be dead.") Last year, at William Steig Storybook Family Day at the Jewish Museum, Maxine had a blast designing an illustrated book with me at a crafts table, but when she spotted the guy in the massive green Shrek costume, she let out a shriek of mortal terror and clung to me like lichen. Both girls tolerated the Murakami show at the Brooklyn Museum - bright colors! Cuteness! The promise of a flower-shaped plush happy face pin at the gift shop! - though Josie and her friend Lila exploded in giggles at the statue of a huge-knockered woman jumping a rope of her own breast milk. Thankfully, the kids were oblivious to the nearby statue of the young cowboy whirling a lasso made of semen. I hadn't read up on the exact content of the show before taking the kids. (And then I collected my parenting medal.)
So when we visited the Museum at Eldridge Street a few weeks ago, I wasn't sure what to expect. But Preservation Detectives, the museum's one-hour kids' program offered every Sunday, was a big hit with both girls. They were handed notebooks as soon as we arrived, in which to record clues about this gorgeous 1887 Moorish building on the Lower East Side. Thanks to the Backyardigans and Blues Clues, even Maxine understood how to be a detective. She looked around and squinted self-importantly, scribbling gibberish in her notebook, furtively and secretly. Our charming guide asked the seven kids on the tour to look around for clues about the building's former inhabitants: What might the 19th-century congregants have been like? What could we learn from the worn floorboards, the narrow and steep stairs,...