My family and I walked into Times Square ready for anything. Our destination was the enigmatic and mysterious Ripley’s Believe It or Not Odditorium, and it promised to be an eye-opening, jaw-dropping adventure into the strange and inexplicable. We couldn’t wait.
Getting Started
Stepping through the threshold into the Odditorium, my wife and I set a rather slow pace, reading every placard on the wall, each one telling yet another unbelievable, if not a bit random, tale or fact, usually accompanied by a grainy photograph. But the kids had no patience for all this silly reading – they just wanted to run up ahead to the next thing they could touch or feel. Luckily, there were a number of wonders that required no reading – including mannequins of the World’s Ugliest Woman, the 1,400-Pound Lady and Man Without a Torso. To connect visitors with how it must feel to have no torso, there was even a little tunnel into which our children crawled, popping up in a cleverly-mirrored spot that made it look to us as if they, too, had no torso.
We did manage to get the children to stop briefly in front of the mirror where you see if you have the gene for twisting or rolling your tongue but their interest was fleeting. After sticking my tongue out at the mirror and seeing that, yes, I am a tongue-flipping savant, we finally left the front room and entered the deeper, darker layers of the Odditorium.
Moving On
We passed a few interesting things such as an enormous, majestic jade sculpture of a sailing vessel and a large chunk of the actual Berlin Wall, but since the history and importance of these were lost on the kids despite our talk track, we moved onward.
After a few mediocre and un-kid-friendly exhibits, we entered the torture room. I have mixed feelings about this room. On one hand, where else can you stick your head in a jar to make it look as if you’re something that belongs on Dr. Frankenstein’s shelves? On the other hand, I was a bit uncomfortable having my 5-year-old check out the electric chair exhibit, the torture racks, or the various other torture devices from around the world. After my 7-year-old daughter saw one of the other guests trigger the electric chair display and it sizzled and sparked, along with the proper vocal accompaniment, she asked me what the purpose of the chair was. I dodged the question, feeling that this was neither the time nor place to explain capital punishment.
After a quick bathroom break, with even more bizarre displays on the walls (I learned about the World’s Longest Mustache), we passed a portrait of Abraham Lincoln made entirely out of pennies, one of two guns owned by John Wilkes Booth when he shot our 16th President (but not, they finally discovered, the actual gun used that evening), and a collection of individual hairs taken from famous
people, including JFK, Elvis, George Washington and Napoleon. Next up, a room dedicated to oddities dealing with love, courting and mating rituals from around the world.
And I thought I was uncomfortable with my kids in the Torture Room.
The Highlights
I hurried them past various sheaths and enhancement devices into a room full of medical oddities, told in X-rays. A snake that had swallowed a light bulb. A dog that had swallowed a knife. An entire wall of X-rays of people and animals that had swallowed all manner of seriously wrong items and lived to be X-rayed about it. This was, to be honest, one of the first rooms that my kids truly enjoyed. My daughter was fascinated, and she kept asking me if all these were real. I was surprisingly pleased to be able to tell her that, yes, everything in this museum was real.
My son raced past the X-rays to what became both his and his sister’s favorite: a virtual display of ancient musical instruments that the viewer can play just by swatting at the air. Here, the kids channeled their inner Bach for quite a while, happily waving their hands in front of holographic representations of different instruments and making beautiful music. In fact, we pretty much had to tear them away or they’d probably still be in there.
Last Stop, Gift Shop
The last display on the way out before we were dumped into the gift shop was a set of one-way mirrors where you could watch people on the other side trying to see if they could twist their tongues around.
I was properly humiliated.
Overall, I would have to say that, while my children enjoyed their visit, I don’t think this was appropriate for their age. Ripley’s is more of a PG-13 attraction than a G or PG. For adults and older kids, it has a host of fascinating and, at times, mischievous and gag-like displays: secret bookshelf doors, an armada built of matchsticks under a glass floor, a 10 pound hairball, a replica of a two-headed goat, and a corny pair of mannequins that look like one tourist taking a photo of another – you are forced to walk between them and find yourself waiting a few moments before realizing they’re fake.
David Neilson is a Westchester-based writer and stay-at-home dad.
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Times Square Odditorium
234 W. 42nd St., N.Y.C.
212-398-3133
Hours: 9 a.m. to 1 a.m. 365 days a year.
Admission: $34.73 adults, $27.11 children.
Note: Tickets at the door are a bit pricey, so be sure to purchase online at www.ripleysnewyork.com for a discount. Thrifty bargain hunters can usually find even more savings through online deals or coupons.
