Historic Church to Become New Home for the Children’s Museum of Manhattan

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Since the Children’s Museum of Manhattan was founded as a grass-roots organization in 1973, more than a generation of young visitors have explored its exhibitions — on everything from bodily functions to the nuances of Japanese culture — with many returning years later with curious little ones of their own.

Now the museum itself is growing up.

On Dec. 22, it completed the $45 million purchase of a new home: the former Church of Christ, Scientist, at 96th Street and Central Park West. Although the site is little more than a dozen blocks from the museum’s present West 83rd Street location, the space is leagues away in what it can accomplish.

The new building, set to open at the end of 2021, will be almost double the current museum’s total space: 70,000 square feet, up from 38,000 at the old location, which the museum has leased since 1989. It is also expected to double annual attendance, to 750,000 visitors from the 350,000 to 375,000 the institution now serves.

The new quarters will focus on “four areas that we consider critical to a child’s development,” Andrew S. Ackerman, the museum’s executive director, said in an interview: arts and creativity, early-childhood programming, health education and cultural literacy. Exposing young children to different cultures is vital, he said, “especially before the age of 7 or 8, when they begin to really firm up their attitudes toward people different than they are.” Covering all those subjects simultaneously, he noted, is “what a new building will enable us to do.” (He said he anticipated a gap of just a few months between the old location’s closing and the new one’s opening.)

The museum just ended the run of a groundbreaking show, “America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far,” which explained Islamic life to the very young. Mr. Ackerman said he would have preferred to have two such cultural exhibitions up at once, to “cross-fertilize,” but has not had the space. He said the museum also wanted to mount more shows like “Art Inside Out” (2002-3), which invited children into installations by the artists Elizabeth Murray, Fred Wilson and William Wegman. Conservation concerns have limited the opportunities.

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“What we really want is a temperature- and humidity-controlled space for art,” Mr. Ackerman said, which the new building will offer, along with a cafe and a theater. He said he also hoped to expand the concept of the Sussman Environmental Center, an outdoor space at the museum with a hugely popular summer water exhibit. The plan is to have a water installation indoors at the new site, where it can operate year round.

“We wanted the building to reflect the excellence of its content,” said Halley K. Harrisburg, co-chairwoman, with Laurie M. Tisch, of the museum’s capital campaign, which aims to raise about $136 million. (The church’s renovation is expected to cost $75 million to $80 million.) The current home, she said, “wasn’t a stand-alone building and it wasn’t a presence.”

The church certainly is. Designed by the Beaux-Arts architects Carrère & Hastings and completed in 1903, it is a New York City landmark whose previous owner, the developer Joseph Brunner, ran afoul of the Board of Standards and Appeals when he tried to convert the space into luxury condominiums.

While the museum isn’t seeking the kind of alterations that doomed the apartment project, any proposed changes to the church’s facade will require approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission. But the interior is not a landmark, and the museum plans to use all that space, “from basement to spire,” Ms. Tisch said.

That does not, however, mean gutting the structure. While the museum has not yet chosen architects, and declines to mention candidates, it has insisted on a New York-based firm with landmarks experience. Mr. Ackerman said he hoped to preserve some of the church’s distinctive elements, like the apse and columns, because “we want children to learn to look not just at art, but architecture.”

So far, the city has allocated $5.5 million for the renovation, and the network Nickelodeon has made a substantial gift — the amount is undisclosed — for exhibition space. Ms. Tisch also plans to turn to families who have matured along with the museum. “There’ll be an area specifically underwritten by grandparents,” she said.

Although Mr. Ackerman has no design details yet, he stressed the need for children to be able to “see themselves at the museum,” regardless of their backgrounds or neighborhoods. “The next step in the diversity of our audience,” he added, “is, how do we engage that audience to talk to one another and to talk to us even more?”