Brooklyn Children's Museum

Brooklyn Children's Museum, founded in 1899, is the world's first children's museum and New York City's largest cultural institution designed for families. Located in Crown Heights, it offers a rich array of hands-on exhibits and activities for children from birth through age 12.

Highlights include Totally Tots, a sensory play zone for children birth to age 6 featuring nine areas including sandbox play, water, music, dress-up, blocks, and climbing. Neighborhood Nature brings ecology to life with a cork garden, greenhouse, sand beach for digging, live animals (turtles, snakes, bugs), and diorama habitats. World Brooklyn features miniature storefronts — a grocery, bookstore, and MTA bus model — where kids role-play as shopkeepers, bakers, and builders. ColorLab is an open-studio art space open Wednesday through Sunday, and In the Works is a two-story scaffolding-themed climbing, sliding, and crawling structure for ages 2 and up.

The museum offers free Community Access Thursdays (2–5 PM), plus free or discounted admission for IDNYC, EBT/SNAP, Cool Culture, Culture Pass, ACM/ASTC members, healthcare workers, military families, and teachers. Amenities include four all-gender restrooms, a Mamava breastfeeding station, sensory kits available at the admissions desk, a dedicated sensory room, and an on-site café. Outside food is permitted per visitor reports.