While both the Lego exhibit and Odyssey’s Shipwreck: Pirates & Treasure at Discovery Times Square are pretty cool, if you’re tight for time or funds, your short ones might prefer the show with pirates.
At first, I didn’t have high hopes that our two sons, Andy and CJ, would be entertained by the exploits of the Odyssey. I mean, the boys were nowhere to be found when the documentary from National Geographic rolled with the tale of the Odyssey, submerged treasures, modern-day science and deep ocean archaeology.
Turns out, Andy and CJ were elsewhere, already gob smacked with the many hands-on activities—some of them such old-timey stuff that they didn’t even need computer chips.
From a hurricane chamber that blasts you with wind gusts up to 80mph (to demonstrate what storms feel like on the open sea) to a knot station where you can fashion different cinches to the spyglasses where visitors try to ID friendly or hostile ships in the distance (was that a pirate schooner or a pirate sloop? Maybe a Navy sloop?), there was plenty to keep kids busy while parents checked out all that sciencey and historical junk.
Of course, there is plenty of interactive stuff that requires electricity: one videogame where you try to navigate toward treasure using only a sextant and compass. (Should you fail, you must navigate away from incoming cannonballs.) Another has you trying to uncover and identify artifacts buried several miles below the ocean’s surface.
There’s also a video where you can design your own buccaneer (weapons, eye patch and all). For inspiration–a display with bios of Blackbeard and Anne Bonny, as well as other infamous pirates. Also nearby: an (occupied) cage like those that swung above city gates inCaribbeanports with the remains of convicted pirates—a warning to those considering a career at sea.
Especially cool: a mechanical robotic arm where visitors pick up ersatz gold double eagles like those the Odyssey found on the SS Republic shipwreck.
Alongside millions of dollars worth of gold and silver artifacts are less glitzy, but more utilitarian treasures, dating back to 1622 like a bone toothbrush, porcelain inkstand and carpenters’ tools. Nearby: a map with locations of famous shipwrecks around the world. (According to the UN’s cultural arm, there are more than 3 million. Hundreds of those have been discovered by the Odyssey team, from 2,000-year-old Roman wrecks to WWII U-boats.
For numismatics enthusiasts, there are 66 authentic gold and silver coins dating from 1622 to the mid 19th century that the Odyssey dredged from wrecks. Coins are worth from $1,000 to more than $600,000, depending on condition, rarity and type.
And for commodity traders in training, there are silver bars, each the size of a dense loaf of bread. Current value: about $20,000 in monetary terms (though perhaps more in an historical context).
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Odyssey’s Shipwreck!: Pirates & Treasure runs until January 5, 2014 at Discovery Times Square (44th Street between Seventh and Eight Avenues. Discoverytsx.com and 866.987.9692). Cost: $19.50 for adults, $16.50 for seniors and $14.50 for children aged 4-12. It runs through5 January 2014.
