Secrets of Long Island Children's Museum
The museum boasts 14 indoor and outdoor exhibits, and this year it will welcome its 4 millionth visitor.
Many Grammy Award-winning artists have also performed at the LICM -- the Blue Man Group was the biggest celebrity performance to date.
Here, Maureen Mangan, director of communications and marketing, offered 12 things you may not know about the LICM.
You can hit the beach in the winter
Credit: Danielle Finkelstein
The Long Island Children's Museum has the only heated beach in winter and air-conditioned beach in summer.
Pictured: Chloe Marshall of Hicksville at the LICM’s Sandy Island exhibit.
"Creatures" lurk in the ceilings
Credit: Long Island Children's Museum
What creatures lurk within the ductwork of the Long Island Children's Museum? Look up in the cafeteria to see the fanciful creatures wrapped around the exposed pipes. Café Creatures were designed from kitchen items by Deborah Coffey and Neel Webber.
Newsday and the Long Island Children's Museum are connected
Credit: Newsday / Kirsten Luce
Like children, the Long Island Children's Museum experienced a massive growth spurt almost overnight. The LICM quadrupled in size from the time it closed its doors one night (Sept. 28, 2001) on its original Stewart Avenue location until it next opened on Museum Row (Feb. 28, 2002). LICM’s first location was at 550 Stewart Ave., which at one time was a Newsday plant.
There are dozens of animals on display
Credit: Steve Pfost
The LICM has a dozen species of animals on display. The only species that isn't made available for kids to hold are the bees; but they are the only animals that leave and return to the museum as they please.
The museum produces a lot of honey
Credit: Long Island Children's Museum
The LICM bees visit 40 million flowers annually to collect enough nectar to produce their annual output of honey -- about 20 pounds.
A middle-age turtle lives at the LICM
Credit: Long Island Children's Museum
People are often surprised to hear that Franklin, an Eastern box turtle, is middle-age: He’s 40 years old.
Children use nearly 500,000 nails at the museum each year
Credit: Long Island Children's Museum
Visitors to the Long Island Children's Museum use enough nails each year -- about 500,000 -- in the ToolBox exhibit to cover the length of Jones Beach State Park. That's about 10 miles.
The LICM is also a zoo
Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa
The Long Island Children's Museum has to have the same certification as a zoo or an aquarium to host its Feasts for Beast exhibit. The exhibit includes live insects and animals such as bees in a working hive, a bearded dragon named Yoshi, Franklin the box turtle, a tarantula and a python.
There have been large sleepovers at the LICM
Credit: Long Island Children's Museum
More than 13,000 Scouts and their leaders have slept at the Long Island Children's Museum; that’s twice the population of East Garden City, LICM’s hometown.
LICM has hosted Grammy winners and nominees
Credit: Long Island Children's Museum
Thirty performers who have won a Grammy or been nominated have played on the Long Island Children's Museum stage, including the Okee Dokee Brothers, Bakithi Kumalo, Anton Fig, Danny Weinkauf and Bill Harley.
Kids can climb the longest ramp in Nassau County at the museum
Credit: Newsday / Audrey C.Tiernan
In 2006, the Long Island Children's Museum installed the Climb-It exhibit. The 140-foot-long ramp that winds around the two-story climbing sculpture is the longest accessibility ramp in Nassau County.
Families are made at the LICM
Credit: Steve Pfost
The Long Island Children’s Museum has been the setting for three Nassau County Adoption Days. The LICM is the only setting outside the courthouse that has been used for this legal proceeding.
Pictured: Shanea Soumakis, 9, of Seaford, smiles after receiving a large cake pop from Judge Edmund M. Dane during an adoption celebration at the LICM in Garden City on Nov. 18, 2013.
