There’s a place in New York that is like no other. It’s a place where floors tilted at an 18-degree angle cause fits of laughter instead of disoriented moans. A place where butterflies flutter freely indoors past giant beanstalks and wizard’s workshops; and a place where you can walk through a massive kaleidoscope into a pirate ship.
The place: The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.
It is considered the nation’s second-largest children’s museum in the country (The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is the biggest) and is one of the most popular family attraction in western and central New York. In fact, records show it does double the business as the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
One trip to the museum and you’ll see why the interactive facility is a multi-generational hit that draws more than a half a million visitors each year. A recent $37 million expansion nearly doubled its interior to 282,000 square feet, so children and their parents have more room to climb the building’s rock walls, sing in mini-theaters, and chase Lepidoptera in a new rainforest-in-a-glass-atrium where some 800 native and tropical butterflies of all hues flutter about year-round.
The Strong Museum is also home to an optical-distortion room (where the tilted floors cause visitors to grab for the walls), a harp with lasers for strings, and a 10-foot-tall animatronic giant who stands guard while kids scale his beanstalk.
Museum curators say their pint-sized guests are usually having so much fun they don’t realize they’re learning things. If play is really how young children learn then the Strong National Museum of Play could be considered a college of fun. It’s here where kids of all ages are given the opportunity to learn from touching, smelling, climbing, and creating. From the Discovery Room where budding artists can paint, draw, color, and mold mini-masterpieces to the mock supermarket and post office where young guests can learn how to make grown up transactions.
The museum also houses a 1918 country fair carousel, a 1956 Fodero stainless-steel diner and various Sesame Street sets. Strong also has a wing that allows kids at heart to stroll down memory lane. In 2002, the museum acquired the five-year-old National Toy Hall of Fame from A.C. Gilbert’s Discovery Village in Salem, Oregon, and as a result, Strong now has 36 classic toys from Barbie and Mr. Potato Head to Lionel trains and slinkies enshrined for guests to gaze at.
The Strong National Museum of Play is open Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Fridays, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sundays, noon-5 p.m. Admission for adults is $9; children 2-17, $7; under 2 years old, free.
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