See the $300M plan to turn historic church on Central Park into new Children’s Museum of Manhattan
Credit: Diane Bondareff/AP Content Services for CMOM
Plans to transform a landmarked church on Central Park West into a new home for the Children’s Museum of Manhattan (CMOM) reached a major milestone this week. The museum on Tuesday announced philanthropist Laurie M. Tisch donated $50 million to support the $300 million campaign for the institution’s new home at 361 Central Park West, expected to open in 2028. In addition to the funding news, the museum also released new renderings of the project, highlighting the conversion of the historic structure into a “seven-story magical castle on the park” for the children of New York City.
Founded in 1973, CMOM has served generations of children and their caregivers at its current location on West 83rd Street. The museum has also partnered with city shelters, Head Start programs, settlement houses, hospitals, and the city’s Department of Corrections to reach a wider audience, as reported by the New York Times.
The First Church of Christ, Scientist was designed by Carrère & Hastings in 1903 and designated a New York City landmark in 1974. After selling to a developer in 2014, the church building was slated to become condos, but that plan was rejected. In 2018, CMOM bought the building for $45 million; plans to convert the building were approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2020.
Tisch’s donations join financial support from the city of New York, which has donated $46.1 million to the project to date, with funding from the Mayor’s Office, the City Council, and the office of the Manhattan Borough President. CMOM has also received $30 million in support from the Bezos Family Foundation.
“This historic structure will be transformed into a dynamic seven-story magical castle on the park for all our City’s children, as CMOM invests in setting every child up to thrive,” Dava Schub, CMOM Chief Exeuctive Officer and Museum Director, said.
“Over the years, CMOM has brought research-based learning experiences to millions of children at our museum and to children where they live and learn, in partnership with City shelters, Head Start programs, settlement houses, hospitals, the Department of Correction and beyond. With our new home, we will be able to do even more to nourish the whole child through play, artmaking and exploration.”
Designed by FXCollaborative and exhibit designers THG, the new 80,000-square-foot space will feature a diverse variety of engaging exhibits and experiences, doubling the musuem’s visitor capacity and expanding age range to 10 years old, up from 8 years old.
The building will be designed as a “journey of adventure and discovery” for visitors, featuring immersive educational experiences and vibrant, large-scale interactive artworks created by and for children. Each floor will offer stimulating, research-backed learning opportunities to nurture social, emotional, and cognitive development.
“As we bring new life to a neglected landmark, we balance the desire to honor, expose, and converse with this historic building to create something new,” Sylvia Smith, FXCollaborative Partner Emerita, said. “The Children’s Museum of Manhattan will come alive through the intermixing of the new and vital with the historic and venerated.”
The ground-floor lobby will serve as a bustling hub and feature a stroller check, a cafe, and a museum store with a curated selection of toys, books, and art-making activities for children of all ages.
On the second floor, children can travel the globe through hands-on experiences and immersive technologies. Organized as an invitation to explore the “Wide Wild World,” exhibits focused on exploration, science, and the environment will nurture inquiry-based skills, fostering analytical thinking, resilience, communication, and curiosity.
The immersive experiences will encourage children to discover different ecosystems, from rainforests to savannahs and undersea reefs, inspiring sensitivity and care for the world. Each experience will be tailored to meet children at their current stage and grow with them.
Located on the third floor, CMOM’s great hall will feature towering 22-foot-tall ceilings and will be devoted to the theme “What Will I Create Today?” Here, children can paint, write, cook, and design—activities that are “access points” to developing self-awareness, social awareness, and compassion.
The largest exhibit will be a multi-level creativity lab, featuring a fully-accessible Maker Space supporting painting, clay making, science experiments, coding, and more.
In the Cocina Kitchen, young chefs will engage in hands-on cooking activities, learning the basics of nutrition, how different foods affect the body, cooking measurements, chemical reactions, and exploring world cultures through traditional cuisines. An interactive reading and writing lab will foster language development, literacy, and creativity.
The fourth floor will wrap around the top of the building’s stunning barrel-vault sanctuary and will be lined with floor-to-ceiling circular windows, and spaces for children to sit, read, and wonder.
In the center of the floor, an interactive large-scale water and sound installation will allow children to compose, perform, and conduct their own music using instruments from different cultures around the globe. Two adjoining gallery spaces, stretching the building’s length, will provide flexible areas for educator-led programs focused on music and science.
Situated above office level, the sixth floor will house CMOM’s permanent performance space with state-of-the-art lighting and flexible seating designed with younger audiences in mind. In the new theater, CMOM will continue its decades-long relationships with over 50 art institutions like the American Ballet Theatre, Ballet Hispanico, Lincoln Center, and more.
The building will also feature a terrace at the base of its neo-Classical spire, offering visitors a prime vantage point overlooking Central Park.
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