From the clay warriors who protected China’s first leader in “Terracotta Warriors: Defenders of China’s First Emperor” to the cash-stuffed dead rats and other artifacts in “Spy: The Secret World of Espionage,” you’ll have plenty of fodder for dinner conversations after a visit to Discovery Times Square.
Depending on your child, the lure of the assassin’s umbrella and Maxwell Smart telephone shoe just next door may prove stronger than that of the Terracotta Warriors exhibit–but even the most rambunctious visitor will be impressed at the sight of archers using their feet to rain down a storm of crossbows like a swarm of locusts. The Terracotta Warriors includes three short educational videos on Qin Shihuangdi, who inherited the throne when he was just 13–not much older than junior exhibit attendees–and who united seven warring states by the time he was 20. When he died at 49 in 210 BCE, he had begun the Great Wall of China in the North, started a canal system in southern China that remains the world’s largest today, and launched an effective system of government. In his spare time, Shihuangdi constructed a massive tomb with some 8,000 terracotta soldiers, full-sized clay horses, weapons, cookery, jewelry, and other items necessary for a safe and prosperous afterlife. Ten soldiers, along with two horses and many once-buried treasures, are assembled in this temporary exhibit. (Also included a handful of erotic objects that my sons sailed right past on their way to the Spy exhibit.)
With its poison-pellet cane, robotic catfish, bricks with secret compartments for cash, iron that incinerates hidden documents, and talk of spies, the two-story “Spy: The Secret World of Espionage” is perfect for pint-sized mercenaries. Parents get to see a timeline that displays events that shaped their childhoods, as well as true stories of Gary Powers, pro-American Soviet spies in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the newspaper boy who helped find out Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
The biggest draw: a laser maze that gives would-be spies 20 seconds to traverse a space essentially the size of a Manhattan bedroom, without tripping the lasers that bisect the area. Not only did the challenge have children army crawling across the floor to dodge the rays, but also older men in yarmulkes and drunk tourists with their high-stepping 20-something girlfriends (whose stilettos may have doubled as lethal weapons in more fraught times). My family happened to visit on a slow day, so by the time we pulled our sons away, they had mastered the obstacle course. The older man and lithe out-of-towners? Not so much.
“Terracotta Warriors: Defenders of China’s First Emperor” runs through August 26; “Spy: The Secret World of Espionage” closes March 31, 2013. Discovery Times Square is located at 226 West 44th Street; discoverytsx.com. (866) 987-9692. Tickets for each exhibit run $19.50 for children ages 4-12; $27 for adults, and $23.50 for seniors. The combo pack: $33.50 for children, $45 for adults, and $39.50 for seniors.
Hillary Chura blogs about money-saving tips for local families in New York Family. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and their two sons.
