Recommendations

The Stylist and I are both gaga about apple seeds. It’s a state-of-the-art play-space for children and families, big on education, fun and safety, short on attitude.

Guide: SoHo Mom (Grace)
Location: Chelsea

Strengths

• Two mothers of twins, Allison & Alison, started apple seeds to create a safe, clean, community-oriented environment where kids and their families can play and learn. Several WOM guides and our friends are members. Other guides are long-time friends with the owners and swear you won’t find nicer people or more dedicated parents.
• They built a new, 15,000 square foot space near Madison Square Park, with a playground area, classrooms, a space for birthday parties, a boutique, and (coming soon) a café.
• They have a lot of fun, educational classes, with topics that include yoga, cooking, art, music and even science (OMG you must see the adorable little white lab coats and safety goggles!).
• Every few hours they have a ‘toy sweep’ where everything that isn’t nailed to floor is washed and replaced by a new set of clean toys.
• The development-oriented playground area is modeled after NYC, with features like a taxi-cab/jungle gym, and a deli with bins of fake fruit.
• Membership is reasonable ($750/yr) and includes unlimited access to the playground, discounts and priority advanced registration for classes.

Shortcomings

They are selling memberships out faster than expected, so don't procrastinate.

Insider tips

It tends to get busy from 10-12 and 3-5

Anecdotes

My children absolutely adore apple seeds. And frankly so do I. The creativity and attention to detail of the founders really shines through. For example, when my kids have taken art classes elsewhere, they bring home their art after each class and it piles up, becomes a mess and eventually gets thrown out. apple seeds bound all the work into a portfolio at the end of the class so we can keep it, and they had this amazing “exhibition” with the kids’ art framed on the walls.

Perfect for

Families in the Gramercy, East/West Village, Chelsea areas.