• The Craft Studio

  1657 Third Avenue, 212-831-6626

  Karolyn Patterson made it perfectly clear to her mother that she wanted an arts-and-crafts birthday party, but nothing “lame”; she was turning 8, after all. So her mother called the Craft Studio and chose a chocolate-house theme. Karolyn and company built all styles of home-sweet-homes, attaching other candies around the façade as décor. Next came limbo-rock and relay races (yes, the place is that big) followed by lunch, all supervised by an energetic, Disney-worthy staff. The houses went home uneaten, wrapped with a balloon attached. The projects—terra-cotta planters, wooden treasure chests, cloth dolls, and pajamas, to name a few—are not all restricted to birthday parties ($495 to $725 for a party of ten kids). Kids accompanied by a grown-up can drop in anytime to scratch their creative itch.

From the 2004 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine