Press

Crain’s New York Business
Though the economic downturn has left many cultural institutions across the city financially strapped, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan is thriving. The museum, which opened in 1973, announced Tuesday that it was on pace to see a record 400,000 visitors pass through its doors for the fiscal year, ending June 30.

The dramatic surge in demand for CMOM’s kid-centric programming—a 10% increase from the previous high of 365,000 in 2009 and a 20% increase over its average yearly visitorship of 330,000 for the past decade—has prompted the museum to open on Mondays and extend Saturday hours into the evening.

“Our record attendance is a testament to the strength of our exhibits and programming and is evidence of the public’s growing desire for a fun, safe, community environment for families to learn and grow together,” said Andrew Ackerman, executive director of the Children’s Museum, in a statement.

CMOM’s good news comes at an especially inauspicious time for cultural institutions throughout the five boroughs. Many of them, faced with shrinking government funding and donors who have scaled back their giving in light of the lackluster economy, are doing all they can to keep their heads above water.

“Museums are still experiencing a lot of economic stress,” said Philip Katz, assistant director for research for the Washington, D.C.-based American Association of Museums. “Nearly one in five museums say that they are experiencing ‘very severe economic stress.’”

Earlier this month, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the city’s most stalwart cultural institutions, announced that it would raise the suggested price of admission to the museum for the first time in five years, thanks to the challenging climate for cultural institutions.
Mr. Ackerman credits CMOM’s success at weathering the recession’s economic headwinds to a plan put in place in 2007 aimed at diversifying the museum’s funding sources and expanding its array of programs.

“We were very strategic and put in place a business plan based on an expanded mission,” he said. “This allowed us to attract both local and national funding from many more sources.”

Recognizing there was “limited funding in the pipeline for museums to do traditional work” locally, Mr. Ackerman said the museum made the decision to focus on a wider assortment of childrens’ needs. Partnerships with such agencies as the National Institutes of Health—which yielded the first national early childhood obesity prevention curriculum—according to Mr. Ackerman, were particularly critical to bringing increased local and national attention to CMOM’s ongoing activities.
The museum has also become “a vibrant center for professional development and research on early childhood and how families learn,” according to Mr. Ackerman.

Indeed, CMOM has developed strategic partnerships with the City University of New York, the United Way of New York City, the Administration for Children’s Services and public libraries, to offer training opportunities to childcare providers, nurse practitioners and others employed in the areas of early childhood education, health and the arts.

According to the Association of Museums’ Mr. Katz, institutions like CMOM are “holding the line in providing service to the American public, and especially to students.”

The museum, currently playing host to Curious George: Let’s Get Curious!, is already well underway with plans for its next major project: Eat Sleep Play: Building Health Every Day, a permanent exhibition aimed at encouraging young people to stay healthy, set to debut in November.

“We are literally bursting at the seams with activity and opportunity,” said Mr. Ackerman.

By JERMAINE TAYLOR