Half a century ago, a brother and sister fled their home in suburban Connecticut to New York City. The Met has never been the same since.

If the sight of Claudia and Jamie bathing in the Met's Muse Fountain and collecting lunch money evokes fond childhood memories of your own, you're starting with Basil E. Frank One of the many readers of E. L. Koenigsberg found in Mrs. Weller's Mixed Files. The classic children's book turned 50 in 2017, and the story of the Kincaid siblings, who wander among paintings, sculptures and antiques by day and sleep in an antique bed handmade for royalty at night, remains as popular as ever. The 1968 Newbery Medal Winner has never been out of print.

(That same year, her debut novel Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, and Elizabeth won the Newbery Runner-Up; Koenigsberg was the only other novelist to achieve this feat. A writer of double literary achievement.)

Elaine Loeb (E.L.) was born in Manhattan in 1930 but grew up in small town Pennsylvania. She earned a degree in chemistry from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh and married industrial psychologist David Koenigsberg in 1952. But a career in science was out of the question. She got into trouble with her lab work; her son Paul said more than once that she blew up the sink and got her eyebrows wrong. . So Elaine became a stay-at-home mother of three, and while living in Port Chester, New York, she decided to start writing.

When we were in elementary school, my mom would write in the morning. She would read what she wrote when the three of us kids would come home for lunch. "If we laughed, she hid it. If not, she rewrote it.

The Koenigsbergs never lived in New York, but The Met always provided a cultural respite, and there was one agency in particular that doubled as a nanny and source of inspiration,

“My mom had art classes [in the city] on Saturdays, so she would drop the three of us off,” she said. All the children were sent to the metropolis. ". "I'm the oldest, so I'm in charge, and I have three rules: One, we have to go see the mummies. Second, we got to see the knight in armor. Third, I don't care what we see. Mom would meet us at museums and take us to study Impressionist or modern art. It always made me want to throw up, but we did it every weekend for over a year.

Best known for Koenigsberg's work, she wrote 18 additional children's books with a variety of inspirations. Koenigsberg recalled in an "Author's Note" published in a 2001 issue of "Mixed Up Files" of Met's Museum Kids magazine that he was at the museum. Lee saw a piece of popcorn sitting on a blue silk chair behind a velvet rope and mused that someone had snuck in for a fancy snack in the evening. She also recalled an ill-fated family picnic in Yellowstone. As ants crawled over the salami sandwiches, the sun melted the cake frosting, and her children whimpered, she realized that if her children escaped, they would have to land somewhere completely civilized.

In October 1965, Konig *** urg found a more concrete inspiration that set the mystery at the heart of the book into motion. At the time, the New York art world was grappling with the question of whether the sculpture the Met purchased for $225 was actually a work by Leonardo da Vinci. (It is now believed to be a Leonardo da Vinci from 1475.) Koenigsberg reimagined the statue as an "angel," possibly by Michelangelo, capturing Claudia's imagination and placing it She was brought to the mansion of the titular Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Just like in real life, the fictional heiress paid a few hundred dollars for the statue. Although the truth about Frank Weller and her exchange of statues in the museum for children's adventures is not based on a real person, her desire for mystery and *** will ring true to anyone looking for an adventure of their own. of.

Koenigsberg found her Fountain of Muse in her children, and many of her literary ideas evolved from the childhood experiences of her three children. It takes Paul being a parent himself before he realizes "how this book can help young people find their own space in life."

Is a real-life Claudia and Koenigsberg's daughter Laurie. She imitated her mother's black-and-white illustrations, drawn from Polaroids taken at the Met.

"My brothers and I were not that popular in Port Chester at the time because we were different. We were Jewish," said Laurie Koenigsberg, 60. Todd said. "There were a lot of fights. We would be followed and beaten on the way home from school. People would call the house and harass us with prejudice and resentment. These experiences made us a very close family. My mother not only Her work alone, she was a generous, loving, creative person who kept our spirits up and kept our standards high.

"

Created for Laura Marx Fitzgerald, the 45-year-old children's author who wrote the novel "Under the Egg" and "The Gallery" in her two middle-school novels. and the Gallery), the books are magical because they are timeless. She said: “As a parent circa 2017, what I couldn’t understand was that there was no Amber Alert, no milk. Pictures on the box, none of the media hysteria surrounding two missing children in Greenwich. "I guess we shouldn't think about the parents in Connecticut who are going crazy with grief." ”

There are no more payphones in the Metropolis, the vending machines in Manhattan have long since closed, and lunch in New York costs more than pennies. But there’s still one place to see so much Coney on a Saturday The Gersberg Family Museum. The Hiding Place is a forgotten film from 1973 starring Sally Bragg as Claudia, Johnny Dolan as Jamie, and Ingrid Berg. Mann plays a reclusive art lover with a peculiar archival system. The film is the first feature film ever shot inside the metropolis.

"We spent a lot of time there. I remember I got to lie in Queen Victoria’s bed. "I loved every minute of it, I ate it up," said Dolan, 55, who now practices employment law in Phoenix. "We shot the fountain scene on museum time. The film got mixed reviews in the 1970s, but for a modern audience it's a beautiful time capsule. The book continues to inspire writers , artists, and at least one famous filmmaker. In the director's manual for The Royal Tenenbaums DVD, Wes Anderson said the book inspired him to build a mini-museum of Margot and Ritchie in a bank. "Escape".

To this day, visitors to the Met still ask to trace Claudia and Jamie's footsteps. In April 2013, the museum held a memorial ceremony for Koenigsberg, who died at the age of 83. To mark the memorial service, in August last year, the Metropolitan Police launched a video called "Can we talk about these mixed documents and the Metropolitan Police?" ”?

To celebrate the book’s golden benchmark, the Met will host special Art Walking Family Tours on July 13 and 15. Museum-goers can see works mentioned in the book Some of the exhibits, such as the mummy and the bronze cat on Egyptian wings, are sadly no longer available. The bed where the children slept was described by Claudia as being 1560. · The site of Rob Sutter's alleged murder, which was demolished several years ago and where children frolicked naked, is now home to Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina.

But for true fans of the book, the museum will always be a special place for Claudia and Jamie, and a spiritual home for anyone seeking art, meaning and pocket money