When the Please Touch Museum was introduced to the public in 1976 as a small exhibit in the Academy of Natural Sciences, founder Portia Sperr never imagined it would become the Philadelphia landmark it is today. It was a revolutionary idea: a museum just for children, where interaction and play are the foundations of learning. The overwhelming response from kids and parents alike brought on a move to a larger space in 1978 and again in 1983. Finally, after plans for yet another expansion, this time at Penn’s Landing, fell through in 2002, the museum was directed to Memorial Hall, and the rest is history.
In fact, history plays a large part in the creation and life of the museum. It opened during the Bicentennial, a special time for the city where the nation was born. Now the new location, nestled in Philadelphia’s most beloved park, brings about another learning opportunity: The Centennial Exhibition.
Created as a part of the 1876 celebration of the country, Memorial Hall had served as an art gallery for the nearly 10 million attendees of the first World’s Fair. It is now one of two remaining structures left from the exhibition and has been home to a model of the Centennial Exhibition fairgrounds since the early 1900s.
When Nancy Kolb, Sperr’s successor as president of the museum, was shown Memorial Hall as a possible new site, she not only wanted to keep the model but decided to expand upon it, creating an even larger attraction for visitors to learn about the historical event that took place in and around that very building.
“It’s mostly [children ages] seven and younger [that we aim the exhibits at], but we offer grown-up tours, which explain the history of Memorial Hall and the 1876 centennial. We do offer stuff for older visitors, and then, I mean there’s something for everybody here. Even though we are geared toward a younger crowd, there’s something for any age group that you can come in here in have a good no matter how old you are,” said media assistant Dan McCunney, who has been working with the museum since June.
From its original 2,200 square feet to its current 38,000, the museum has grown exponentially and more than just physically. At first, only 25 children were allowed in for 30-minute periods of time to use the earliest exhibits of which there were only three. As the demand grew and the building expanded, new exhibits were added: a grocery store, a dress-up station and a doctor’s office among them. Children were encouraged to “play pretend,” and they relished it.
“I remember I would imagine all the different things I could be, and the museum was teaching me what it would be like,” said Chelsea Enright, 22, of the days when she used to visit the museum as a child. “Now I’m studying become a doctor, and I wonder if that had something to do with it.”
The current exhibits continue to bring that joy and imagination to children today. And with six different “zones,” there’s something for all interests. “River Adventures” located on the main floor. The main attraction is a waterway that twists and turns around the room and is elevated approximately two feet off the ground–just the right size for a young child. Boats and waterwheels are used to teach children about the science of water and simple machines.
“Roadside Attractions” features a garage where both cars and fine motor skills are tuned, a pretend SEPTA bus to play “grown-up” in, and a historical monorail that used to reside in Wanamaker’s. Children can also play in the “City Park” and visit a pretend food truck or create their own artwork on an interactive mural.
“Flight Fantasy” is a newer exhibit geared towards science, invention, and gross motor skills. Kids learn how spaceships are designed, how astronauts train, and how all things are interconnected. Wheels, a balance beam and puzzles are used to encourage them to experiment and make decisions while working together.
Also upstairs is an area for rotating exhibits, which is currently in transition from a Halloween fun land to a Christmas village that will open by the end of this month.
“We have traveling exhibits that come in every so often. In January we [will] have an accessibility exhibit that explores the challenges faced by people with disabilities and tries to educate people on how people with disabilities go about their daily lives. So that exhibit area changes throughout the year, and then we have different programs and different character appearances from Sesame Street and [other] PBS shows and things of that sort. So something’s always changing around here; the main exhibits stay the same pretty much, but we always have something [else] going on,” said McCunney.
Downstairs is “City Capers,” a mock-city complete with a grocery store, shoe store, hospital, construction site and even a fast-food restaurant. The stores give a glimpse into basic life skills and aid with numbers and counting. More motor skill development takes place in the construction zone, “Busy Build.” Also included in the mix is “Front Step,” a former television set where pretend filming is done.
Getting away from the ordinary, “Wonderland” gives visitors a glimpse into Lewis Carroll’s popular story of a curious girl named Alice. Children’s imaginations come alive as they wander through a maze made of pretend shrubbery, which leads to a tea party with the Mad Hatter and March Hare, and the “Hall of Doors and Mirrors” allows children to open doors and turn keys by themselves. The entrance to “Wonderland” is magical, too; visitors walk down a zig-zagging ramp filled with pocket watches and optical illusions simulating “falling down the rabbit hole.”
The lobby of the museum is home to a scale replica of the Statue of Liberty’s Arm and Torch. At 40-feet tall, the statue was made from a large variety of objects, including classic toys, action figures, signs and remnants found in Memorial Hall when it was being renovated. The artist, Leo Sewell, is a native of Philadelphia and also created “Artie the Elephant,” a statue brought from the previous Please Touch location and made in a similar fashion from “junk.” Sewell spent three years finding objects and creating the Arm and Torch.
Despite the recession, the first two years in Memorial Hall have been very successful for the museum in terms of sales.
“In our first year [at the new location] we had 480,000 visitors, which is three times as many as we had in our last year at our old museum, and this year I think we’re looking at less than that, probably around 360,000 which is still a lot for a kid’s museum,” said McCunney.
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