June is the one month in which the most ice cream is produced, but July is the month that most ice cream fans are looking forward to. Why? New York City is about to become home to the Museum of Ice Cream on July 29.
The brainchild of Maryellis Bunn, the former head of innovation at Time Inc. and an ice cream devotee who reports dreaming of creating an “interactive ice cream wonderland in New York City,” the museum is scheduled to open in the heart of the city’s Meatpacking District, mere steps from the City’s famous High Line, and will remain open through the end of August.
Though the museum is something of a dream come true for ice cream lovers everywhere, it’s only a part of the growing trend of frozen confection cravings.
Restaurant industry experts and observers have all come to one conclusion: New York City is in the midst of an ice cream boom.
New shops and specialty vendors are opening left and right, and even with their growing population, owners often find the demand extremely high.
“We have hour-and-a-half lines for milkshakes in a blizzard,” said Joe Isidori, chef and co-owner of Black Tap Craft Burgers & Beer, a Manhattan chain that has become famous for its gargantuan and creatively conceived milkshakes.
While restaurateurs are sticking to some more traditional ice cream treats, the museum seems like it could be something dreamed up by fictional chocolatier Willy Wonka, especially with all of the colorful frozen attractions it boasts. It promises to be a highly interactive, wildly colorful, and often edible tribute to the world’s favorite frozen dessert.
Exhibits were curated by ice cream enthusiasts far and wide, including renowned London-based ice cream sculptor Anna Barlow.
Other attractions will include a chocolate room, which will celebrate ice cream’s scrumptious best friend with a chocolate fountain as the centerpiece of the room, and walls that “drip with digital chocolate projections set to a unique score inspired by the grand wizard Willy Wonka.”
If that wasn’t enough, there will also be an ice cream sandwich-shaped swing and an ice cream scooper seesaw.
However, the crowning jewel of this ice cream palace will be a 363-cubic foot swimming pool full of rainbow sprinkles, in which visitors will be allowed to take a dip.
Although the museum’s creator claims that the sprinkles “look and feel real,” she also warns that they are not, in fact, edible.
A variety of local vendors like OddFellows Ice Cream Co. and Black Tap, are included with the price of admission, which is $18 per person, $30 per couple, or $10 for kids under the age of 10 and senior citizens. So regardless of whether you swim in the pool of sprinkles or not, you’ll still leave with your fair share of frozen treats.
