CHILD-PROOF
The Cooper-Hewitt Museum is like a mullet, with a staid canopied visitor entrance in front, on East 91st Street, and a dreamy garden in back, on East 90th Street. That garden is half a block deep, with low trees and shrubs, an open lawn, meandering walkways, and flowering vines tumbling down the back of the building. It had been for paying visitors only until 2015, when the museum completed its renovations and it was opened to the public. The garden offers an intimate alternate to Central Park, which is just across Fifth Avenue. There’s a row of smart orange cafe tables under umbrellas, where one can meet a friend for coffee or wine, and wood benches under trees, where one can slip away with a book.
I stepped inside this Tuesday, after a difficult morning, to unwind before heading home. And I was surprised to find that the place was overrun with small children.
Their strollers were lined up along the west fence and their blankets were laid out on the grass. These children weren’t visiting the museum, but had been brought by distracted parents and nannies so that they could run, scream, and snack on the lawn, under the wary gaze of a museum guard, while they themselves stood to one side checking their phones and, in general, checking out.
The garden was designed by a team of heavy-hitters including Walter Hood, Diller Scofidio +Renfro and RAFT. Furnishings are by Yves Behar and Heatherwick Studio. Right now there’s an installation of black and white benches designed by Hood, inspired by Roberto Burle Marx’s iconic curving paving tiles at Rio, that the children were climbing on and jumping off of. A great chunk of our popular culture (television, movies, musical theater) has been given over to children, engineered so that it’s appealing and inoffensive to their eyes and ears. Must this little space – a pocket of high design – be given over too?