To New York City's Teachers and Parents
As the director of El Museo del Barrio, I enjoyed the opportunity of formally interviewing my son Alexandre, a seven-year-old second grader at P.S. 199, for NYCkidsARTS.org. After this experience, I realized the importance of focus groups and I learned that visitor information gathering should always start at home.
Please enjoy this verbatim account of his favorite cultural organizations in New York City.
—Julian Zugazagoitia
Director, El Museo del Barrio
Julian Zugazagoitia: Alexandre, I know you enjoy cultural activities in the city. Could you tell us what do you like doing and why?
Alexandre Zugazagoitia: I like building houses at the Center for Architecture because it?s fun and you get to pick your own materials. I also like playing at El Museo del Barrio. Last time, we made clay and I built a boat and a tomb for the Day of the Dead. It was like a hotel for skeletons that came back from the dead. I like making things out of wood and I usually do that with my grandma...and I made a Batmobile.
JZ: What other museums in New York do you like?
AZ: The Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Natural History, the Empire State building, Lincoln Center, the aquarium, MoMA, the zoo...
JZ: Why do you like those places?
AZ: Because they are interesting and you learn facts. In the zoo you learn animal facts. In the Metropolitan you usually learn facts about knights and paintings. And that the Met is the same thing as the Metropolitan. In the Empire State building you usually just see the view. In the Natural History Museum, it is simple, you just learn about the natural history. You learn about the big whale and fish. You usually learn about dinosaurs. I like also the Guggenheim. I like the shape of it. There are circles and zigzags and wavy and straight lines.
JZ: Can you tell us of other experiences where you make art?
AZ: Oh yeah, I went to Garden in Transit twice and we painted little taxis and then we colored big stickers that go on real taxis. I liked it for a few reasons. First, it helps children that are sick. And they can also do it. It is okay if they make the paint go out of the line because they put the black lines afterwards. And second, because they already made a zeppelin, an airplane and a tugboat, and they are thinking about the subway.
JZ: You also like going to the botanical gardens, no?
AZ: Yes, I like it because me and my dad love old trains, and it has trains, trains, trains. It is really nice because you wish you were inside one of those trains.
JZ: What are those glass houses for?
AZ: Usually plants and when there are no trains, they call it the greenhouse instead of the glass house.
Also I like going to Chelsea Piers and hitting golf balls. After that, we go to see art galleries and I like it because we see all these weird things. And I really liked this one art piece that had HO & N trains every five minutes.
I saw a football player that had a rocket engine in his backpack. You could take off on it.
There was a video projecting a $20 bill that a little guy was erasing.
I found this other painting. It was really cool. It is sort of like a pier. It is really neat because you have to imagine you are on top of a skyscraper in front of a pier. My dad said we could not buy it. I saw a couple of other ones by the same artist.
JZ: In New York, beside the museums what do you like doing?
AZ: In this interview, can I say which is my favorite book and things like that?
JZ: Yes.
AZ: I like running and playing Sui. I love reading Magic Tree House books. I figured out that there are tapestries in the Metropolitan by reading Blizzard of the Blue Moon, number 36 in the series. It is about the Unicorn Tapestry.
My favorite book is Tin-Tin. My favorite animal is a shark. My favorite vehicles are trains, airplanes and fighter jets. My favorite food is sushi. My favorite game is the Wii. My favorite park, Central Park. My favorite beach is Normandy beach. My favorite pet animal is a chameleon. My favorite sport is tag. Another one is fencing with swords where you try to get the other person first. I love the fountain of Lincoln Center and running around it. And I am can not wait to go ice-skating again at Rockefeller Center.