Chinatown Kids Neighborhood Guide

Your kids are intimately familiar with all of the different Angry Birds and their powers, and know exactly where to Cut the Rope to feed the little monster. But can they name all four of the ghosts in Pac-Man? Doubtful... but we bet you can! (Say it with me: Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde). Since today's kids are used to touch screen games (or games that require no touching at all), getting the chance to jerk around joystick on a vintage video game console is a real novelty. Trouble is, where do you find those these days? Why, in a museum of course.

The Museum of the Moving Image and the Museum of Modern Art have both amassed old-school arcade video game collections, and you can actually play many of them in two new exhibits. And if you worry that a museum isn't the optimal setting for game playing (which often involves a lot of whooping and cheering), we've also found a handful of old-fashioned family-friendly arcades (and no, not one is a Chuck E. Cheese's or Dave & Buster's).

[UPDATED: DECEMBER 11, 2012]

Although we recently updated our roundups of drop-in play spaces in Queens and Brooklyn, it had been a while since we overhauled our list of Manhattan play spaces—so long in fact that a few of our old picks are now closed. But don't worry: There are still plenty of spots where young kids can run around freely indoors without signing up for a pricey annual membership.

We found ten awesome indoor places in Manhattan that currently offer open play hours. Some allow you to drop in while others ask that you make reservations, but none require any kind of long-term financial commitment. From traditional preschooler play spaces like Chelsea Piers' Little Athletes Exploration Center to more offbeat romping spots like the animal-centric Art Farm in the City, here's the scoop on the best places to play indoors in Manhattan.

We continue our spotlight on Chinatown with a post about one of the neighborhood's leading cultural institutions: the Museum of Chinese in America. Originally founded in 1980, MoCA moved into its current Centre Street home in 2009. Designed by artist Maya Lin (who created Washington D.C.'s iconic Vietnam Veterans Memorial), the museum is small but striking, and showcases the history, heritage, culture and experiences of Chinese-Americans through technology, photographs, art and relics. MoCA also regularly offers programs for kids and families.

My husband is Chinese-American and our daughter is biracial, yet we had never visited MoCA as a family, so I was very excited to go on this outing with them.