The Strong Museum of Play, Rochester (NY)

Above, left: Normal Guy and Girl on Sesame Street; above, right: Normal Guy in Big Bird’s crib.

What does it say about the two of us that we don’t yet have any children, but enjoy strolling Toys ‘R’ Us? Or that we have a hard time resisting an empty swing set without stopping in for two quiet minutes sailing through the air?

When Normal Girl and I last visited Manhattan, we pushed each other on the swings of Central Park. Mid-summer in Bucksport, we chased each other around the Miles Lane playground like schoolchildren. And not long ago, we spent an afternoon in Henry Bear’s Park, a few blocks down the road from Normal Girl’s family in Arlington (MA). For whatever reason, we get a kick out of looking through toys, children’s books and games, etc. I can’t explain it, and I’m not going to try.

In any event, when I was researching Rochester-area attractions, the Strong - National Museum of Play caught my eye. As you may recall from an earlier blog entry, I wasn’t sure whether we would have time for the Museum of Play, and it certainly wasn’t the kind of place I would visit alone.

Fortunately, we ended up with a spare two hours between Normal Girl’s last school visit of the day and our flight home (the one that went so well). So I plugged in the address and let our Australian Guide (“Cat”) show us the way.

The museum, founded by Margaret Woodbury Strong in 1968, is a wonderfully spacious children’s museum that also includes several exhibits better fit for adults. We were there on a September weekday, so the crowd was thin.

For Normal Girl and me, the main draw was the Sesame Street set, which is probably much more familiar to us than to the toddlers running around the day we were there. It was rather surreal, in truth, to sit on a replica of the front-steps on Sesame Street, to climb into Big Bird’s nest, and to walk past Mr. Hooper’s store. But it was a wonderful exhibit, including interactive displays for each of the major players (human and Muppet), various games, and a fun green screen set-up that would allow parents to take home a video depicting their child on-screen with Elmo, the Cookie Monster, or another favorite Muppet.

Throughout the building were tables stocked with arts and crafts supplies. I saw several kids wearing hats of their own creation, though Normal Girl and I managed to remain under control. I thought this was a great touch, though I cannot imagine the chaos on a rainy summer day…

We skipped “Super Kids Market,” a large grocery store replica (Western New York, so it was a Wegman’s branch) where the kids could fill their shopping carts and run the items across the scanner. It looked like the kids were having fun, but grocery shopping long since stopped being a source of fun.

In the interactive “Field of Play” we learned all about the various reasons for “play” and played where we could. The perspective room (where you could look really tall or really short simply by walking from one end of the room to the other) was a hit with Normal Girl, while I got a kick out of the sideways room that appeared level to the eye, but stood at a forty-five degree angle, making it quite a challenge to walk across without tumbling over (and taking out a crew of four year-olds in the process!).

My one complaint, especially prominent in this section, but pervasive in other exhibits, was that many displays were broken. I can imagine it must be hard to keep up, but it seemed that half the displays failed.

Upstairs, we spent half an hour perusing cabinets of toys. Many were recognizable from our own youth: He-Man, Transformers, GI Joe for me; Care Bears, My Little Pony, and Cabbage Patch for her. (Also, Normal Girl’s love for Atari is well documented.) We skipped the aisles of dolls because all those eyes freak me out, like some scene in a horror movie where the dolls come to life. But, the doll houses were truly impressive. Some from the mid-1800s had a dozen or more rooms, each decorated with unique wall paper, china, furniture, etc. I enjoyed the Barbie / GI Joe section, where I learned, for the first time, that the two dated in the seventies after Joe had returned from his tour of duty in Vietnam… (Seriously!) Learn something new every day!

We didn’t have time to see the remaining exhibits of the museum or the various nature exhibits (butterfly garden, aquarium, etc.), but we saw enough to provide an Unqualified Recommendation. If you’re in Rochester and have children or, like us, remain young at heart, the Museum of Play should make your Trip Goals for sure.

The Strong – National Museum of Play is located in Downtown Rochester and provides ample parking. For directions, click here.