My spouse and I visited
Spyscape on a Sunday morning in late March 2018. This attraction is open daily
from 10:00 am until 8:00 pm. Adult admission costs $39 per person ($32 for
children). We paid our admission using a credit card. We spent about 2 hours
for our visit.
Spyscape opened in Midtown in 2018 in a 60,000-square foot
building at the corner of 8th Avenue
at West 55th Street. Complimentary lockers are provided to store coats, purses,
and bags. A well-stocked bookstore is on the street level (presumably
accessible by everyone), while a small café (non-alcoholic beverages and
snacks) and a gift shop are located on the second floor (accessible to paying
guests only).
Your experience begins in a unique oversized briefing
elevator that transports you from the ground floor/street level to the second
floor. The main floor contains seven galleries, each with a unique theme including
encryption, special ops, and surveillance. Rooms contain galleries of objects
(such as an enigma machine) and displays about people involved in real historical
spy craft, including Alan Turning and Joan Clarke, Virginia Hall, Robert
Snowden, and Robert Hanssen. We recommend watching the movies Imitation Game
(with Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley), Snowden (with Joseph
Gordon-Levitt), and Breach (with Chris Cooper and Ryan Phillipe) before your
visit to familiarize yourself with some of the people you will hear about at
Spyscape.
When a guest purchases admission, he receives a lanyard with
an electronic chip. As he passes through the galleries, he has the opportunity
to scan that chip to answer questions and complete challenges that show his
risk tolerance/aversion, personality traits, and IQ. At the end of the visit,
the museum compiles all the data to develop a spy profile for each guest that
indicates what type of spy job/role for which they are best suited. We particularly
enjoyed the surveillance gallery and the laser-beam tunnel.
We enjoyed our visit to Spyscape; although it was pricey, it
was a unique interactive experience.
