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Community Corner

LICM Counts Down the New Year NYC Style

Children's museum hosts 5th Annual "Countdown to 12!" New Year's celebration and ball drop for 2010.

Yesterday's morning snow and freezing temperatures didn't stop revelers in Garden City from enjoying some New Year's Eve fun at the Long Island Children's Museum (LICM), where a Times Square-style ball drop helped ring in 2010.

Over 1,200 guests were expected for the party that grows in attendance each year. Maureen Mangan, LICM's director of communications and marketing, said, "What we try and do is create and family centered opportunity, for the kids to have the same kind of experience that the adults do, on a time table that doesn't disrupt and still lets the parents go out that night."

Inside the theatre, Louie Miranda and the el Louie Show performed songs like "La Bamba" and beckoned kids and their families to cha cha and salsa right along with the Latin sounds.

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Throughout the museum exhibits, families could visit one of seven craft stations set up to make party sashes, megaphones, top hats, cookies and more. At the "skyline design" station, guests could decorate a city skyline and fireworks scene. Many families were not first time party-goers. Garden City residents Scott and Susan Busch, members of LICM, were in attendance with their two sons, Michael and Matthew, for the second year, as well as Marisa Moody with her two daughters, Nicole and Emily, also of Garden City.

At 3:30 p.m., Louie Miranda and the el Louie Band hosted a second sing-along in the museum lobby to get guests on their feet, singing and dancing their way into the New Year. The lobby echoed with festive Latin music and the excited countdown of the New Year as a silvery, sparkling ball dropped from the ceiling. 

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