The Children's Museum of Indianapolis
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The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, the world's largest children's museum, is located in the city of Indianapolis, Indiana, United States.
Founded in 1925, the museum claims to be the fourth oldest such institution in the world. It is located in a working class neighborhood immediately north of downtown Indianapolis. The current building was built in 1976, and has had several significant expansions since then.
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[edit] Inside the Museum
There are miniature exhibits throughout the museum as well as resource centers for tourists and schools. The main stairwell of the museum is actually a giant spiral ramp which allows visitors to access all five levels of the museum by walking or the use of strollers and wheelchairs. In 2006, world renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly installed a four story glass sculpture inside the central atrium of the giant spiral ramp. This installment is called "Fireworks of Glass" and is accompanied by an exhibit of Chihuly's glass blowing methods.
[edit] Lower Level
What If? is a popular attraction located in the lower level of the museum. When entering, you first explore an underwater setting (which features a few fish tanks). Visitors then come upon an open area known as the Dinosaur Discovery Area where children used to be able to dig for dinosaur bones. This area has been replaced with a few plasters of dinosaur bones with plaques. To the left of this area, visitors can enter a darkened hallway which resembles the insides of an Egyptian pyramid. While touring the "pyramid" they can gaze at Egyptian artifacts, including a replica of the real mummy which resided there on loan from the Chicago Field Museum until 2007.
The lower level also hosts its own planetarium (the largest one in the state of Indiana with a capacity of 130 people), a theater, and a real antique train engine and tool car that visitors can walk through.
[edit] Ground Level
The Museum has an expansive courtyard, parking lot, and parking garage to accommodate large parties of visitors such as schools on field trips. The lobby of the Museum contains North America's [1] largest water clock as well as a large museum gift shop and a food court. The museum also boasts a 3,000 square foot branch of the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library called the InfoZone. This replaced a geology gallery and a replica of an Indiana cave that were the first area one visited before the front lobby expansion.
[edit] Second Level
The second level is where many temporary special exhibits are hosted. The only permanent exhibit on this level is Passport to the World, a two story exhibit which explores traditions and cultures from around the world.
[edit] Third Level
Before its closure, the most popular permanent exhibit on this level was Mysteries in History, an exhibit which focused on uncovering clues of the past. Here visitors could enter two walk-through log cabins from the 1800s or stroll down a 1900s main street, entering some shops. It has now been almost completely dismantled; a new exhibit will take its place in late 2007 / early 2008. The original exhibit was built around a Conestoga Wagon that has long been part of the collection before Mysteries in History was introduced in the mid-1980s.
Also on this floor is Story Avenue. Visitors take a walk through tour of an African American community. The people are life size mannequins that talk when visitors pass. The exhibit is an overall look at the oral story-telling traditions of African Americans. This is in the former Clowes Gallery, once the home of rotating exhibits, and for a long time, an exhibit called Pastimes, which dealt with games and leisure of the past. The exhibit became less popular when some coin-operated devices were removed or deactivated, such as an old-style flipperless pinball machine in a 1950s-style malt shop setup and a flip movie, and when the malt shop stopped serving food.
Next door is the preschool play area called Playscape. Playscape includes a big raised sandbox area for children to play in, a raised water river where kids can play with water toys (water protective clothing is provided as well as an air hand dryer), a construction site, and multiple other interactive areas for children to play in.
The third floor used to house the large Tyrannosaurus model now outside the museum. It was a walk through time featuring concepts of the formation of the earth in a witch's cauldron, a large model of Paleozoic insects the size of chickens in their environment, a model Pteranadon, an exhibit surrounding the mastodon skeleton unearthed in Indiana in the 1980s, a gallery of heads of human ancestors, and the mummy exhibit in hieroglyphed walls. People were welcomed to the exhibit by multiplate artwork of a Stegosaurus.
[edit] Fourth Level
Perhaps one of the museum's most popular and unique exhibits is a real life-size indoor carousel called Carousel Wishes and Dreams. The carousel was originally built for an amusement park (now Broad Ripple Park) in 1917 and was restored and reinstalled in this museum. It is considered the museum's biggest gallery artifact. The carousel is a National Historic Landmark.
Also on this level is Science Works, formerly Science Spectrum, an exhibit completely devoted to exploring natural science and physical science through building activities. Children may build toy boats to float along the waterway, play in a construction zone, erect an arch, climb a rock wall, crawl through "underground" tunnels, observe and live pond, and many other activities. Within Science Works is a newly constructed biotechnology laboratory, which hosts daily events focusing on the future of DNA and chemistry.
[edit] Dinosphere
The Dinosphere is located in the spherical wing of the museum which is separate from the other exhibits, where the Cinedome Theater was formerly located. There are several dinosaur art galleries and a wide open area which features fossil digs, real artifacts, and numerous life-size dinosaur fossils from the Cretaceous Period. Dinosphere features one of the largest displays of real juvenile and family dinosaur fossils in the U.S.
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