A Third Place for children downtown?

The Boston Children's Museum along the waterfront of Fort Point Channel.

Boston. There’s really nothing like it in the fall. Returning to Beantown, the city where I completed my Master’s degree three years ago, it was hard not to feel the early semester rush that bubbles in most college towns at the beginning of September. But with over 50 colleges and universities in the metropolitan area, Boston is thick with the optimistic fresh-start feeling created by new classes, blank notebooks, and crisp weather. What a perfect time to assess the city anew, through the lens of my downtown families research.

I arrived on the Acela train from New York on a Wednesday morning and immediately met a friend at the Boston Children’s Museum, a mere two blocks away. On a weekly basis, she and her daughter walk or take the bus to the museum where, in addition to their regular exhibits, they offer a music class for children called Music and Movement. From the Children’s Museum website:

Music and Movement is designed for children infants, toddlers, and preschoolers to interact through sound, sight and touch in a live music setting. Grownups and children get hands-on with real drums, tambourines, and other noise-makers, and sing along to music that gets all ages moving! It is a safe and fun opportunity for your toddler to meet other children and participate in group activities. All classes are led by trained music education teachers from Little Groove.

Tips on enjoying the program with your young children

STROLLER PARKING: For safety, we ask everyone in the class to park the stroller in designated spots in the Common, away from the stage area.

GENTLE TAPPING: Infants are welcome to this class too. Tap or rub gently on their shoulder so that they can enjoy the rhythm.

CLAP, SING, and CHEER: Children may look upon you for cues in what to do—so clap your hands, sing out aloud, or cheer!

DO IT MYSELF: We ask children to help themselves with getting instruments, and cleaning up after using them. Guide your little ones to follow instructions, and be proud of what they can do.

Little Groove provides one of their five singers/performers/music instructors and for 45 minutes, twenty to thirty 2-5 year olds are bouncing, singing, clapping, running, and burning off lots of toddler energy. On this particular Wednesday, thankful moms and nannies looked on and participated from the back rows as the kids sang along with the instructor of the day, Erica, to childhood favorites like The Wheels on the Bus. 

Kids, parents, and nannies sing along with Erica, the instructor of Music and Movement at the Children's Museum.

The Boston Children’s Museum is a wonderful cultural asset to the city. Like most children’s museums, they draw visitors from a wide geographical area outside of the downtown neighborhoods, enjoy a large sea of tourist traffic that frequents many of the city’s attractions, and also serve a dedicated group of “regulars.” These regulars are families that have an annual membership and use the children’s museum like an extension of their homes. Here, their kids can run around, be messy, make noise, jump around and cause a raucous without much fuss.

Children and parents enjoy one of the many interactive exhibits at the Children's Museum.

My friend, with her husband, toddler, and dog, live in a narrow three-story, two-bedroom row-home in Charlestown. Like many downtown Boston families, they aren’t long on space compared to many American families with young children. But she notes that by frequenting the Boston Children’s Museum, among other parks and amenities in the city, they don’t need to have certain larger toys at home. They save on limited space, but don’t sacrifice their daughter’s ability to play and learn.

The New Balance Climb, an interactive climbing exhibit at the museum that vaguely resembles a human-scaled gerbil maze.

As architects and planners, we talk about “Third Places” – spaces that people frequent outside of their home (first place) and work (second place). They are often shared, communal spaces, either public or private, to which individuals feel a sense of belonging. A Third Place to a young single in the city might be a local pub or a favorite coffee shop. To a retired couple in the city, a Third Place might be the local recreation center, the barber shop, or the neighborhood park where they play chess or do Tai Chi.

Strollers line the hallways of the Children's Museum. Designing spaces for kids and their families requires attention to detail and a knowledge of the user. Many times spaces are not intentionally designed to be unfriendly to families, but a family's space requirements are not considered in the design and thus they deter families.  

What about a Third Place for families with children? These places outside of the home and eventually outside of school naturally change as the children grow. To my friend with the toddler, the Boston Children’s Museum is certainly one of their favorite Third Places in the city, and one that allows them to live in a smaller home.

A huge elevator, large enough to fit 5 strollers and many standing passengers allows easy movement between the museum's three floors.

In my travels, I’ll be on the lookout to find what other amenities or Third Places in a city allow families with children to live in smaller spaces. These places have specific programming criteria that allow them to function well for families with children, such as ample room for strollers and child-friendly bathrooms, among others.

Have a particular downtown amenity that you and your family use weekly or monthly? Tell me all about it!