They’re Building Communities

“I like being the cook,” Christian Berkeley says as he shuffles pans behind the counter of the diner at the Zimmer Children’s Museum. Unfortunately, Christian’s food feels like plastic--but it’s not the cook’s fault. The food really is plastic.

The diner that Christian, 6, and his buddies Ethan and Duncan Bochicchio, 3 and 6, are happily running is one of more than half a dozen businesses along the kid-size Main Street on the first floor of the Zimmer Children’s Museum.

The Zimmer, which reopened six months ago in a new location on Wilshire Boulevard, is the only children’s museum on Museum Row.

And the Bochicchios know them all.

“We hit museums all the time,” says Ethan and Duncan’s dad, Stephen Bochicchio, adding with minor exasperation, “we’ve done enough of the dinosaur museums.”

It’s the boys’ first time at the Zimmer, and it’s no surprise that they gravitated to the kitchen, says Stephen, because he works at Arnie Morton’s. They also like the space capsule, made out of a geodesic dome.

“Well done,” is Stephen’s assessment of the museum, which moved from 2,000 square feet on Olympic Boulevard to 10,000 square feet on Wilshire. “It’s exactly their imagination level.”

Though the museum, geared to ages 3 through 11, might look like a playground, to the delight of the kids, it’s also a museum with a mission, says Esther Netter, executive director. Every exhibit or attraction offers lessons about helping neighbors and thinking about other people’s feelings.

“As we’ve developed over the years,” says Netter, who has been with the Zimmer since its inception 12 years ago, “underlying everything is what a community is and how we are responsible for being part of it.”

Teaching children compassion and instilling a sense of community are noble goals for the children’s museum, but if it’s going to attract kids, it had better be fun.

As soon as you walk in the door, you sense it will be. The first things to catch your eye are the fuselage of a real Piper airplane, with cockpit intact and doors and windows within kids’ reach, and a two-story pinball machine, roughly the size of a house, extending from the first floor into the second.

In and around the airplane, kids learn how people of many backgrounds have journeyed to the United States. Kids are issued passports, with stamps from Mexico, Israel, the United States and other countries.

The Tzedakah pinball machine (“Tzedakah” means “do the right thing” in Hebrew) gives kids the choice of three pucks, each representing a way in, which they can give to the community--money, time and of themselves. Kids can catapult the pucks from the first to the second floor, and watch them descend, rebounding off wheels that spin and launch them again with flippers.

One Sunday a month is designated Family Funday Sunday, which is aimed at the entire community.

This Sunday, the Jumbo Shrimp Circus comes to the Zimmer, featuring Moxie & Floxie, carnival games as well as workshops in juggling, rope walking and plate spinning. Admission for the day is $12, nonmembers; $8, ages 6 to 17; $3, ages 3 to 5; free, 2 and younger.

Among the permanent exhibits, kids and adults can dress up and role-play--for instance, there’s a real ambulance on the lower floor. Kids can put on a white coat or medical scrubs to “play rescue.” Actual patient X-rays (donated by an orthopedic surgeon), emergency supplies, wall maps and an emergency panel with buttons and flashing lights are at the kids’ disposal.

Along Main Street, structures include Bubbie’s Bookstore, a synagogue, a market, a newspaper and a toddler’s room, with a floor made of colorful cushions and fun-house mirrors.

Andrea Gill, mother of 3-year-old twins Micah and Jonah, brings her boys to the Zimmer about once a week.

“If it’s a high-energy day, we play here,” she says, as the twins tumble and bounce around the toddler fun house. “If they’re mellow, we read in the library.”

There are many activities throughout the museum for children to do on their own or with a group--and to accommodate both able-bodied and physically impaired kids. Private rooms are available for birthday parties.

For an additional fee, the museum offers special programs and workshops on weekdays, including Tuesday’s Clay Cafe, Wacky Wednesday Workshops and Terrific Thursday programs (last Thursday, Alligator Al’s Traveling Reptile Show featured live snakes and turtles).

“Being on Wilshire Boulevard and Museum Row is wonderful,” says Netter, adding that the new location has “given us great prominence” and a greater capacity to offer more programs for school and church groups.

The only apparent misstep in the new facility was the installation of old-fashioned pay phones, one at each end of Main Street. The youngsters should be able to talk to each other--but the phones have rotary dials.

“They’re clueless,” Netter says with a laugh, demonstrating how kids attempt to push the numbers inside the circles.

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Zimmer Museum, 6505 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. Admission: $5; $3, for ages 3 to 11; free to 2 and younger and grandparents (with grandchild in tow). Circus Day, 1-4 p.m. Sunday. Summer hours: 12:30-5 p.m. Sundays and Tuesdays through Thursdays. (323) 761-8994.