A Rainy Day in ....New York
My nieces, Becca (9) and Sarah (7), wanted to visit American Girl Place in New York, so being the accommodating aunt that I am, I organized a trip to take them to the big city. Their mother, my sister Ellie, and their big brother Derick (16), also came along, so we tried to fit in activities that would appeal to all ages.
New York City is the number one most visited city in the United States. Some of its most famous landmarks, like the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building and Central Park are great activities for a clear day. However, if the 
temperatures are above freezing, you could encounter a rain at any time of the year, and escaping the winter cold and summer heat, are equally good reasons for planning some indoor activities.
There are certainly plenty of options for staying out of the weather, from world class museums and monuments to amazing shopping, scintillating nightlife and, of course, the most famous live theatre district in the world.
To develop your contingency plan to escape indoors in New York, come along with us on a virtual visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the NBC Studio Tour, Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, nights out on and off Broadway, and of course, American Girl Place.
For more rainy day New York alternatives, check out the New York links page.
Kayte Deioma
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the world's largest and finest museums. Ironically, that's why I hadn't visited it in any of my previous trips to New York. I felt that a great art museum like the Louvre, the Prado or the Met deserves a full day to really appreciate its collections, and I've never stayed in New York long enough at one time to be willing to devote a whole day to one activity.
Since I was in New York this time with my sister and her kids, I decided that it was more important for the kids to get a taste of great art than to worry about not having time to see the whole thing, and thereby miss everything. We didn't expect the kids to have the patience to stay in a museum more than a couple hours anyway...
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Year's ago, I took some of my siblings to see Blood Brothers on Broadway during a weekend getaway to the city. They only went along to humor me. There was a universal attitude among them of "What's the big deal? We've seen lots of plays." After the performance, my sister Ellie looked at me with her eyes still lit up and said, "Now I get why you love Broadway!"
I've never been a big fan of wax museums. I went once when I was 18 and didn't feel like it was something I ever needed to do again. Seeing the experience through kids' eyes made me think again.
Madame Tussauds was the one thing that my nephew Derick really wanted to do in New York, and he'd been such a good sport about American Girl Place, that we made the effort to squeeze it in on our last day.
We had walked past Madame Tussauds several times on our way to do other things near Time Square. The giant hand reaching out the front of the façade like it's going to pluck you off the sidewalk, made my nieces just as excited to come back and see what was inside...
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