New Bronx Children’s Museum Finally On Track To Open By 2017 in The South Bronx

After 10 long years, The Bronx will finally have a permanent space for the Bronx Children’s Museum.

In Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito’s State of The City address today, she mentioned the opening of the Bronx Children’s Museum by 2017 ending an era where we are the only borough in NYC without a dedicated cultural institution for our 250,000 children under the age of 9.

For years the museum has been slated to open at the old Powerhouse Building in Mill Pond Park along the Harlem River and across from the Bronx Terminal Market but funding has not been there — and it still isn’t fully since there as $4 million is needed to complete the museum but the commitment from the city to open by 2017 is there.

According to a press release issued by the Bronx Children’s Museum executive director, Carla Precht said:

“The Bronx Children’s Museum is a symbol of NYC’s Tale of Two Cities. On behalf of the children of the Bronx who cannot vote and do not have a voice, we applaud the Speaker’s clarity about issues critical to the future of our great city — the empowerment of all vulnerable New Yorkers, including children like those of the Bronx, who for too long have been denied equal access to educational, enrichment and economic opportunities. There are 250,000 children in the Bronx under the age of nine.

“Every other borough in the City has at least one accessible and affordable educational and cultural institution devoted expressly to its children and their needs and aspirations. Until very recently, the Borough of the Bronx only had the Bronx Zoo. With the upcoming opening of the Bronx Children’s Museum’s Kids’ Powerhouse Discovery Center, which the Speaker and our Borough President have been advocating for, the era of exclusion will finally be over. The development of the Museum’s building near Yankee Stadium is finally on track and is slated to open in 2017. The Museum needs to raise approximately 4 million dollars to finish developing the site.”

 

Sonia Manzano, who was raised in The Bronx and known to millions of adults and children alike as Maria from Sesame Street, also issued a statement regarding the museum stating that, ”

“Children’s museums today are just like libraries used to be when I was growing up in the Bronx. A children’s museum can unlock a young child’s imagination and creativity, inspiring a life-long love of learning. I am so happy that our Bronx children will finally be getting their own interactive educational and cultural institution — something I have been advocating for almost a decade. In order for our children to get ahead they need equal access to the arts, enrichment and children’s museums.”

This is truly wonderful news for the children of our borough.  The location couldn’t be more ideal as it sits right along the Harlem River in beautiful Mill Pond Park, a 10 acre park which opened in 2010 as part of the new Yankee Stadium deal to create more parks in the neighborhood for destroying the original Macombs Dam Park.  The park is popular with families and children and is also slated to double in size, once funding is secure, towards 149th Street at the foot of the 145th Street Bridge.

Don’t forget to like the Bronx Children’s Museum on Facebook!