KidCity: Everything Kids

NYC Kid’s FREE Event: Reopening of the St. Agnes Branch Library Celebration

Today’s bright, welcoming and spacious children’s sections of the New York Public Library, one of the city’s absolute best indoor public spaces for single digit kids, seem to have escaped many an erudite parents’ notice.

Perhaps we still conjure images of the way it was when we were young. Or we’re still too disillusioned by the sacrificing of the Donnell, the city’s absolute best kid library, to the insatiable real estate deity. Or maybe we just got tired of schlepping the stroller up the steps only to encounter a branch closed due to budget cuts.

Well, free up your dance card once again. The Big Apple’s Bibliophile Institution is trying to woo us back, just in time for Valentine’s Day. And after a preview last week, this family is ready to love again.

The Upper West Side’s St. Agnes Branch Library has been given a major facelift by an architect who we’d bet has kids. It’s much more family friendly than most other branches including these features:

• A ramp
  YES! you read that right! Someone finally realized what a hassle it is to get up those big marble steps with a stroller (or a wheelchair!) and now you can actually get into the library without any steps. Score 1 for families!
• The kid section is on the first floor.
  Yes! Again, someone with a brain and some babies must have designed this. No longer do you need to hush your crying 8 month old as you climb 50 huge marble steps. Now, the chaos of child rearing can be celebrated without disturbing the library’s adult patrons-located on the upper level.
• Stroller parking
  OK, so it would have been asking too much for them to actually have a true stroller parking lot. But the room itself is set up with wide enough aisles and big open spaces that a stroller will no longer be a major hurdle to library going.
• Two spacious reading areas with comfortable, clean furniture, carpeting and open areas for roaming.
• Plenty of Light
  The general impression is of a much more illuminated and natural space. The windows at the front have been enlarged and a skylight was added in the adding much needed natural illumination.
• Safer
  The general shape of the first floor (e.g the shorter shelves) has made it easier to keep track of a roaming toddler or mid-schooler who wants a bit of independence.
• 20,000 items
  The shelves are generously stocked with plenty of books for all kid ages and also multiples of popular books. Compared to the Jefferson, 67th street and the midtown library, this is the best collection we’ve seen as of late.
• 12 computers
  Exclusively for the use of kids, these 12 screens are at kid-height and set apart from the reading areas, making for minimal interruptions and a better chance your kid can actually get a computer.
• WIFI!!!
  Whoeee! Now you can sit and do your email, surf the net or whatever else on your iPhone or laptop for free while the little ones listen to story time, or roam around. If only they’d let us bring in a latte!
  
• Ongoing booksale
  Whoeee! Everyone knows the library has the absolute best book sales. Now, we don’t need to wait for the once a year opportunity. The basement will house a constant book sale filled with books for all ages. Hopefully, they will keep prices at the usual bargain rates.

On February 11th, there will be a big Grand Reopening Celebration

Here are details from the Press Release:
The February 11 festivities kick off with an 11 a.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony featuring community members, elected officials, library staff, neighborhood school children and special guests. Following the ceremony, the public is invited to participate in a series of performances, children’s programs, talks, workshops, and more. Among the events planned are tours of the library; face painting, balloon animals, story hour and magic for children; a talk relating to the history of the library’s Upper West Side neighborhood; a workshop on job resources and networking; a drumming program; and a gaming session.

Thursday, February 11, 2010
11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Free and open to the public
444 Amsterdam Avenue (near 81st Street)

11 a.m.
Opening Ceremony and Ribbon Cutting, with elected officials and special guests, including Fox News anchor Alisyn Camerota

12:30 p.m.
Magic Show, with Evan Paquette
Neighborhood History: Upper West Side Odyssey, a talk by Jim Mackin, Park West Neighborhood History Group

1 p.m.
Center for Reading and Writing, an overview with staff and students

2 p.m.
Children Sing and Celebrate Around the World, a singing program for preschoolers
Get Noticed in 2010: Networking Made Simple, a workshop for job seekers
Center for Reading and Writing, computer demonstrations and casual conversations with students and staff

3 p.m.
World Beat and Percussion with Dale Gordon, a participatory performance
Face Painting and Balloon Animals

Also: Gaming with Nintendo Wii

Ever tried to get a 40 foot box into your apartment?

Consulted with the fire department about that evenings planned pyrotechnics?

Or even wondered what goes into making the magic of a major theater production?

In this, the first of several guest posts from The New Victory theater, Dave Jensen (New Vic’s Director of Production) shares the grueling week before a show’s opening from the stagehand’s point of view.

The Count-down to Opening Night : February 5, 2010

Today (Friday, January 29), was a busy day – 8 hours for 8 stagehands. Our day began early in the morning when we finally received the staging container that travelled via sea freight from London – a 40 foot box. The box arrived on our shores a week ago, but because it took several days to clear customs, it just arrived at The New Victory today. Inside the box were about 170 sheets of plywood, four massive wardrobe crates, and the parts for a big rotating platform that sits on the stage. It took our stage hands two solid hours in the freezing cold weather to unpack the container and move the goods from 43rd Street — where the truck had to park — into our loading dock. Later in the day, the trucks with the instruments rolled in – one with the percussion, one with the piano and one with the harp.

Monday (February 1) will be our biggest day — 12 hours for 16 stagehands plus wardrobe and staff. The Company will arrive with their 10 staff/crew and their singers. While they get settled into the dressing rooms, the crew will be receiving yet another 40 foot shipping container with all of the scenery, props (lots of props!) and the golf cart. Yes, a golf cart. I won’t give away the show so you’ll have to come see it to appreciate why the golf cart is necessary! Anyway, on Monday we’ll be assembling scenery, focusing lights, overseeing the orchestra rehearsal with singers, setting up all the video monitors, prepping the many wigs and costumes, setting up the dressing rooms and generally getting the entire stage area set up.

Tuesday (February 2) will be yet another long day –12 hours for 12 stagehands plus wardrobe and staff. But this time, instead of doing the brutal work of hanging scenery and moving a lot of very heavy things, we’ll be fine tuning the set up. That means we’ll load the orchestra into the orchestra pit, have a meeting about the pyro effects with our pyro technician and the company stage manager, start to cue the lighting, and then rehearse. A lot. Eight hours of rehearsal to be exact. For an opera singer, that’s a lot of rehearsal!

Wednesday (February 3) will be yet another long day of rehearsals –12 hours for 10 stagehands plus wardrobe and staff — but with a twist. We’ll be getting a visit from the FDNY’s Explosives Unit for their inspection of the pyro effects that we’re using in The Enchanted Pig. That visit will take about 45 minutes, and the inspectors will inspect the scenery and watch us operate the effect before they grant us the permission to use it. In addition to complying with the requirements of the FDNY, we’ll have our pyro-technician on hand to keep things safe. After all, he’s licensed to operate these effects by the City of New York, the State of New York AND the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, so he has a lot of regulations to help guide him and to keep everyone in one piece. The pyro effects are subtle but important magic for the show. The first full dress rehearsal is in the evening at 6:30 pm, so the inspection MUST go well.

Thursday (February 4), it will be over. Well, the load in part of the set up will be over. We’ll do the first run of the show in front of an audience at 11am. After that, we’ll be in show mode, just doing the shows and keeping things turning over before we flip this show out in three weeks.

We’re keeping our fingers crossed that everything goes to plan and that those things that don’t are minor in scale. Please keep yours crossed too.

See you at The Enchanted Pig!

Totally irrelevant but completely irresistable:

Did Apple even ask one female employee, or have one focus group before naming their new uber cool device the decidedly not cool name, iPad?

So here are some great parodies already floating around the web. I just can’t resist. I love you Steve, but you should have called me first. Or one of the other 7 million New York women who might buy your Slate.

And this ad compliments of AdFreak.com. Is this the beginning of Apple’s fading star?

KidCity & The Scholastic Store’s Family Valentine’s Day Charity Cookie Exchange!

Please Join Us!
WHEN: MONDAY FEBRUARY 8 3:30 – 5:30 PM
WHERE: The SOHO Scholastic Store (557 Broadway between Spring & Prince Streets)
WHAT: KidCity & The Scholastic Store’s Family Valentine’s Charity Cookie Exchange!
COST: $20 donation per family (2 kids, 2 adults); $10 per extra person
AGES: ALL!

KidCity & The Scholastic Store’s Family Valentine’s Day Charity Cookie Exchange!
100% of the proceeds go to the ASPCA.org, Hester Street Collaborative and DoSomething.org.

Just start the Valentine’s Day Sugar Rush & Empower kids to help their community!
Bring your family & a $20 donation. We’ll keep kids busy with energy burning Bollywood dancing, unique crafts & other distractions-so-you-have-something-fun-to-do-on-a-freezing-February day. Pick FREE cookies, brownies, macaroons & more donated by NYC’s finest patisseries.

Kid’s Activities Include:

• LOVE BUD
  The Hester Street Collaborative will focus on the local environment. Kids will make Plantable Valentines & Seed Bead Jewelry using native wildflower seeds & paper they make themselves.
• PUPPY LOVE
  The ASPCA will be leading the kids in a fun animal activity. If we get lucky, we might even meet a few of their furry friends.
• LABOR OF LOVE
  Animals? The environment? Senior Citizens? DoSomething.org will help kids discover causes they care about with collage! Kids will make a custom collage illustrating the groups they might like to help when they ‘re ready to volunteer independently.
• HEART THROB
  Bollywood Dancing: A professional dancer will get kids moving to Bombay’s beat.
• SWEET HEART
  Decorate your own Valentines Day cookies  at Billy’s Bakery Booth.

Goodies come from NYC’s finest bakeries & patisseries including the following (A BIG thanks to the bakeries that made this event possible):

• William Greenberg Desserts
• This Chick Bakes
• Oro Bakery Bar
• Once Upon A Tart
• Milk & Cookies
• Magnolia Bakery
• E.A.T.
• Buttercup Bakeshop
• Bouchon Bakery
• Billy’s Bakery

Awooooooooo!

There is little we love more than dogs, and by extension there close relatives, wolves. So we’ve been anticipating this week for quite a while. On Saturday the American Museum of Natural History is bringing in some real wolves for kids to meet from the Wolf Conservation Center. We’ll be there (front and center). If you happen to be going, drop us a line and we’ll introduce ourselves in person!

Here is the official listing:

WILD, WILD WORLD: WOLVES
Saturday, January 23, 11 am–12 pm and 1–2 pm

Children will meet Atka, an Arctic gray wolf from the Wolf Conservation Center (WCC) in South Salem, New York, and learn all about these highly endangered predators and their vital role in sustaining a healthy ecosystem. A representative from the WCC will also discuss the Center’s participation in the program to reintroduce wolves into their traditional ranges out west.

Linder Theater, first floor
$10 Adults; $8 Children

African-Americans suffered disproportionately (and still do) by racist attitudes and actions. But the civil rights movement is no more owned by African-Americans than Holocaust resistance was owned by Jews or suffrage was owned by women. Injustice, suffered anywhere, affects all those who touch it, fight it, comply with it, or blatantly promote it.

Martin Luther King Day and Black History Month give parents a chance to break the cycle of history repeating by looking through the window of how African-Americans suffered, fought and eventually broke through barriers.

Books chosen stood out in these four areas:

1. Encourage empathy for victims of racism in single-digit kids
2. A compelling story with an engaging narrative flow
3. Inspire courage and empowerment in single-digit kids by demonstrating how individuals can make a profound difference in society.
4. Promote peace and justice using non-violent means.

	Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down 2010 is the 50th anniversary of when four brave college boys (the “Greensboro Four”) calmly and peaceably asked for a donut and coffee, with cream on the side at the Whites Only Woolworth’s lunch counter. By sticking to that simple message and using strong colors with illustrations that contrast the tranquility and conviction of the students with the  abstract hatred of their prosecutors, the point is clearly.
	Our Children Can Soar We LOVED this book. Using one simple sentence, the author demonstrates how each person’s courage lays the foundation for the future generations accomplishments. An excellent book to use any time of year.
	Marching For Freedom For 7+, the story of how African-Americans won the right to vote focusing on how children helping make it happen.
	Busing Brewster The collage illustrations give the book away: this succeeds in making a tough topic–school integration–much less intimidating to younger kids, by using charming illustrations that lower the readers guard. The story is equally upbeat and optimistic–leaving only hints of deeper issue adults can ignore or explore, depending upon their kids ages and proclivities.
	Child of the Civil Rights Movement Gently subverts the authority paradigm by revealing civil rights leaders for what they were to one of their children: real people who were just doing what they believed was right. Rarely do kids get as good an opportunity to internalize that people like MLK, Dorothy Cotton, Andrew Young and others played in pools, ate too much at holidays, and also happened to lead marches to end segregation.
	This is the Dream If Dr. Seuss covered the civil rights movement, he might have written this book. A simple rhyme and easy meter rhythm juxtaposed with a collage of famous moments and people. Once again, this gives adults the flexibiity to delve to the depth they are comfortable–and is a verbally compelling introduction for even the youngest kids.
	Frederick Douglass: Young Defender of Human Rights Of all the biographies received, the Young Patriot Series was the most engaging and well-told for single digit kids. Through anecdotes and everyday actions, kids can see how Frederick Douglass lived and eventually paved the way for the civil rights movement
	Mama Miti A simply told story, boiled down to the bare essence, about how one woman and trees can solve virtually any problem–great or small. Notable: Wangari Maathai, Mama Miti, was the first African-American to win the Nobel Peace Prize (2004).
	Black Magic Right for the youngest kids up to early readers, being black is appreciated through different sensations anyone can relate to. Working from concrete to slightly abstract, black is first items and then emotions. “Black is loud like my best tap shoes . . . Black is delicious like the deepest, darkest chocolate that melts in my mouth…and Mama’s voice is black and sweet as I fall asleep.”
_	Five Bold Freedom Fighters Dramatizations of five African-Americans (three women!) that forced social reform in a read-it-yourself novel.
_	Harlem A cross between Ellis Island and Eden, Harlem is personified in a thousand small vignettes laden with emotional weight. This is an approach to civil rights, slavery, African-American history and culture seen through sensation: “A huddle of horns and a tinkle of glass, a note Handed down from Marcus to Malcolm to a brother Too Bad and too cool to give his name.”

Today must be the day for shameful institutional actions. Is school really there to tell kids how long their hair should be? I’d find that pretty invasive unless I was sending my kid to Vidal Sasson.

(via NEWSER) – A 4-year-old Texas boy is being taught in isolation from the rest of his classmates—and faces an even harsher punishment—for not cutting his hair to conform to the school district’s grooming code. Taylor Pugh now works one-on-one with a teacher’s aide during the school day at his pre-kindergarten; the suburban Dallas district says next week he’ll be working alone at a desk in a school office.

School rules say hair can’t extend below the earlobes and must be kept out of boys’ eyes; the district offered to lift the isolation that Taylor’s faced since November if he keeps it in tight braids. The family’s tried that in the past, his father contends, and it caused Taylor’s scalp to break and bleed. In any case, Delton Pugh, who’s looking for a lawyer, tells the Morning News, “there is no reason he should have to cut his hair.”

via Texas School Isolates Boy, 4, Over Long Hair – Taylor Pugh has been confined to library with aide since Nov..

This article comes from today’s New York Times. I am reprinting it here because the public is simply not aware enough of how our beef industry is endangering our children. As a reminder, the ONLY way E. coli starts is from the intestines of animals. From there, it goes on to vegetables, into water and other ways that even the most diligent vegan can contract it. Below is a brief blurb from Wikipedia:

Transmission of pathogenic E. coli often occurs via fecal-oral transmission.^[17][27][28] Common routes of transmission include: unhygienic food preparation,^[27] farm contamination due to manure fertilization,^[29] irrigation of crops with contaminated greywater or raw sewage,^[30] feral pigs on cropland,^[31] or direct consumption of sewage-contaminated water.^[32] Dairy and beef cattle are primary reservoirs of E. coli O157:H7,^[33] and they can carry it asymptomatically and shed it in their feces.^[33] Food products associated with E. coli outbreaks include raw ground beef,^[34] raw seed sprouts or spinach,^[29] raw milk, unpasteurized juice, and foods contaminated by infected food workers via fecal-oral route.^[27]

Last year, despite being a vegetarian, I got Salmonella SaintPaul. It was painful, I thought I was literally going to die. I recovered but it took several weeks to do so and I am a strong adult. Only imagine what it can do to kids.

THIS IS THE SECOND TIME A NESTLE PLANT HAS BEEN SHUT DOWN FOR HAVING E. Coli IN THE DOUGH! (see this June 2009 USA Today article &

Nestle Shuts Va. Factory After Finding E. Coli in Dough (via New York Times)

Nestlé USA said Wednesday that two samples of its Toll House refrigerated cookie dough made at a Virginia factory tested posi- tive for E. coli bacteria this month despite rigorous safety measures put in place after a recall of the product last summer.

The company said the tainted dough had not left the factory and no recall was necessary.

The company said on Wednes- day that it would shut the Dan- ville, Va., plant for nearly two weeks while it changes its recipe and production processes. When it reopens, the company will begin using flour that has been heated to kill dangerous bacteria, including E. coli, salmonella and listeria.

Nestlé said that all cookie

dough currently in stores is safe and that it was not recalling any of the product.

It said that after last summer’s recall, it began testing samples of every batch of dough before shipping it out and that until now it had no positive tests for E. coli O157:H7, the toxic strain behind last year’s outbreak.

WILLIAM NEUMAN

Pedaling is the series you’d create if you had rock hard muscles, weren’t embarassed to be seen in tight lycra and had more time on your hands. Beautifully shot and edited (the music is a bit annoying) its three guys who bike the city and beyond looking for the best food experiences. It’s so pure and un-FoodTV I’ve become addicted. If only they were vegetarians…

(I first found out about this from one of my favorite email subscriptions Tasting Table).

New York Historical Society has a FREE Family Week

Beginning this Saturday February 13 and continuing through Sunday February 21, admission to the New York Historical Society will be free. They’re kicking it off on Saturday with a handful of family events making their Lincoln exhibit more accessible to the single digit set.

Here is a listing of the events from their press release:

Saturday February 13, 2010 10:00AM–5:00PM
PRESIDENTIAL LIVING HISTORY DAY

• Where’s Lincoln?: A Luce Center Scavenger Hunt for Families 1:00 — 2:00 PM
  Lincoln is loose in Luce! N-YHS educators will lead young detectives on a mission to collect clues about Lincoln’s whereabouts. On the way, these aspiring investigators will learn about our nation’s 16th president and his journey from a log cabin to the White House.
• Create fun Crafts 11:00 AM — 4:00PM
• Meet Civil War reenactment troops and learn about military life during Lincoln’s tumultuous presidency.
  • 6th Regiment U.S. Colored Troops
    African American troops made up approximately 10% of the Union Army during the American Civil War. Among them were the 6th Regiment U.S.C.T., which assembled at Camp William Penn in mid-to-late 1863 and began their duty at Yorktown, New York. The 6th Regiment would go on to serve with distinction throughout Virginia and North Carolina until September 20, 1865. Today the 6th Regiment United States Colored Troops Reenactors portray the regiment to promote education and community service.
  • 2nd New Jersey Cavalry
    A reactivated western theater Civil War Cavalry unit formed of both mounted and dismounted members. They portray federal volunteer cavalry as they fought on horseback and as dismounted skirmishers.
  • 22nd U.S. Colored Troops
    Organized at Camp William Penn in January 1864. With 681 Jerseymen on its rolls, it was the most “Jersey” of all USCT regiments. The Regiment left Philadelphia for Virginia at the end of January and served at Yorktown through April of 1864, where it was assigned to garrison duty and served on several reconnaissance missions.