Barnyard on Fifth Avenue

Any adult knows that a zoo is a place where animals look at the people. Children, on the other hand, like to look at the animals--and. better yet, touch them if they can. Trouble is, many zoos are so arranged that the only things within a child's reach are balloons, peanuts, popcorn and restrooms. In Manhattan's Central Park last week, kids.flocked by the thousands into a brand-new zoo, built just for them.

Donated to the city by former Governor and Mrs. Herbert H. Lehman, the zoo is a brightly colored fairyland that is designed to make adults feel just a little bit as if they were intruding in somebody else's territory (see color). A grownup must be accompanied by a child to get past the moppet-height turnstile (admission: 10-c-). The coin-operated dispensers for animal food are knee-high, and the waste receptacles are painted to look like enormous green and yellow frogs (FEED ME PAPER) and big brown bulldogs (I EAT ANYTHING).

A large "contactring" is full of rabbits, ducks and chickens that the children can fondle and lug around to their hearts' content. The houses of the Three Little Pigs--one of straw, another of sticks, and a third of non-huffable brick--sure enough hold three pigs. In Old MacDonald's Farm roam a placid Jersey cow and her calf, a few llamas, a couple of goats and a black baby yak. Behind the barn is a run for sheep, roosters, hens and geese, and there is a pen for three raccoons that hide in a log. The children can also poke around in a good-sized Noah's Ark, where the rabbits sleep at night, a candy-striped Hansel and Gretel gingerbread house (no witch), a turreted castle with winding stairs (and "Stoop" signs for the adults), and a walk-in birdcage. In Mouseville, built to resemble a big cheese, they can study scurrying white mice, and in the Hurdy-Gurdy House, a monkey swings to music. Best of all. they can slide down a "rabbit hole" just like Alice, and walk into the mouth of a huge whale just like Jonah.

By week's end more than 40.000 kids had roamed the zoo to leave their handprints on all the creatures ("Mom-meeeeee! Lookit! I'm touching a bunny!"). In fact, the bunnies got such enthusiastic huggings from small admirers that they had to be retired, in shifts, to sheltered pens to recuperate.

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