Under ten? No Frick for you!

Marimekko

Apparently children under 10 cannot enter the Frick collection. Can you believe this? I personally think it's outrageous. Parents should be able to educate their kids to appreciate Art since an early age. I've been taking my kids to museums since both were just a few months old and of course I know that at their age they don't understand the importance of a Picasso or a Rembrandt or to distinguish a Pollock from a Matisse. Nonetheless, I'm quite certain that little by little I'm educating their senses, guiding their eyes, inculcating a notion of Beauty so later on they'll be able to appreciate all form of Art and understand it. Museums and galleries are part of our daily life. We don't usually stay for long hours, because young kids (and even adults) get tired pretty quickly. Therefore, I usually do frequent but short visits. Hence my discontentment with the Frick's decision of not letting children have access to its beautiful collection - we probably wouldn't have stayed for more than half an hour.

Here's what happened. This morning, my mother, P and I, left the house very excited about our plans and the (cold) bright sunny day. We would first go to see the Picasso's exhibit at the Frick and then we would take P to Central Park. Well, plans didn't went accordingly. Since P is only 2, we weren't allowed to enter the museum. When the doorman told me that children under 10 weren't admitted I was very surprised and asked him if it was a recent rule. I was even more surprised when he told me that it had been in effect for years. I replied that the information was wrong given that I had already been there several times with my older son (who's only 4) when he was a baby. He looked at me as if I had imagined the whole thing and told me that it was just impossible. No children under 10 had been allowed in the galleries for many years, but if we wanted, we could still buy one ticket, so one of us could go inside, while the other would wait with the baby in the stroller. We laughed at the suggestion and we left frustrated.

Since I'm pretty sure that I had been there before with F, because it is (should I say was now?) one of my favorite museums here in New York, when I checked the museum's visit information last night, clicking on the admission option never crossed my mind. Lesson learned, I will always check that now. We ended up taking P to the park and he had a great time while we were freezing (Winter has arrived without giving any warnings). There is this very nice playground inside the park at 72nd street and fifth avenue, where I take the kids from time to time.

On our way back home, to cheer us up a little bit after our frustrating morning, we stopped at Marimekko on third avenue. Our new darling. Yesterday we had already been to the new flagship store on 5th with 23rd street. Patterns, patterns and more patterns. Beautiful and joyful patterns everywhere.