Say goodbye to some old favorites as Discovery Children’s Museum relocates
January 4, 2013 - 2:00 am
Children ask, "What do I want to be when I grow up?"
Children's museums ask, "Where do we want to be when we grow up?"
The Lied Discovery Children's Museum is in the process of answering that question - but it won't take much longer.
Sometime in early February, the museum - which has been a fixture at the Las Vegas Library in downtown's "Cultural Corridor" since September 1990 - will close its doors.
About a month later, in early March, a new set of doors will open - in downtown's Symphony Park, adjacent to The Smith Center for the Performing Arts - and the Lied Discovery Museum will become the Discovery Children's Museum.
"If everything runs on schedule, we should be finished here by mid-February," says Linda Quinn, the museum's chief executive officer.
Which gives families about a month to visit the old favorite - a 20-time winner in the Review-Journal's annual Best of Las Vegas contest - one more time.
"This is a well-designed building for a museum," Quinn says. "It's just that we outgrew it."
(The Las Vegas Natural History Museum is "definitely in discussion" with library officials about moving into the Discovery Museum's old space, according to Marilyn Gillespie, the natural history museum's executive director.)
The Discovery Museum's new $50 million Symphony Park home will have three stories, not two, and almost double the space (58,000 square feet), with expanded interactive exhibits in nine themed galleries. (For an online preview, go to www.nowtowow.org.)
Some of the new exhibits will be reminiscent of current Discovery Museum favorites.
Instead of the Green Village - a hands-on miniature city complete with supermarket, bank, auto repair and airport - there will be Greenopolis .
Judging by the activity on a recent post-holiday afternoon, however, Green Village seems to suit enthusiastic young museum visitors just fine.
In the garage, junior auto mechanics swarm around a car, performing such maintenance tasks as adding oil and tightening a tire's lug nuts.
At the airport, kids hoist luggage onto a make-believe conveyor belt and guide their parents through a security checkpoint before climbing into the cockpit to pilot the plane.
But Leela Anderson, 8, from Ann Arbor, Mich., has a different favorite.
"The Smith's shop," she says, glancing toward the well-stocked shelves of the let's-pretend supermarket. (Leela's visiting her grandfather in Las Vegas along with her mom, Faye Bradbury, and her 5-year-old brother, Frank Anderson.)
Despite its popularity with young museum visitors, the Green Village "didn't fit the new space," Quinn says. "So we'll build a new one."
The exhibits making the big move from the current museum to the new space are already off the floor and being refurbished, she notes.
Which means that almost all of what is still on display at the original Discovery Museum won't be making the transition, Quinn says.
Instead, the exhibits will be donated to a new start-up children's museum in St. George, Utah.
"I love the fact that we have found a partner museum that needs what we have," Quinn says. (And, of course, nostalgic locals can always drive to Southern Utah to revisit their favorites.)
There are exceptions - including the hurricane simulator, which, after you step inside, boasts winds whipping up to 80 mph. (It's the most fun you can have at the same time you're having a really bad hair day.)
That will wind up somewhere in the new museum.
But the beloved bubble table - at which giggly kids gingerly lift big hoops, stretching soapy, rainbow-hued shapes to the breaking point - will no longer be a showcase attraction.
"We have one bubble table we're going to keep," Quinn explains.
But it will be used for "trade shows" - and, perhaps, outdoor events in Symphony Park.
So the bubble countdown is on.
For now, however, museum volunteer Victoria De La Hoya, 15, is busy wiping soapy water from the floor surrounding the giant bubble tray.
"I'm getting excited about the new museum," says De La Hoya, a student at Southwest Career and Technical Academy. "But I'll miss this one. When I was a little girl, I used to come here a lot." (Her favorite feature as a kid: the hurricane simulator.)
In the Desert Discovery area, Las Vegan Joy Myers plops down on a bench in front of a closed curtain - which pops open when her 4-year-old grandson Cole bursts through, a puppet attached to his hand.
Later, they climb the 36 steps of the museum's Science Tower together, Cole counting each step as they approach the second floor. Myers has a museum membership for eight, so she can bring all her grandchildren with her to the museum.
"It's one of the few nice things in Las Vegas for families," she says. "It's so nice for the kids. They have a good time."
(And so do the grown-ups with them.)
But "the new one will be even nicer," Myers predicts.
In the meantime, the old Discovery Museum keeps making memories for families who will be visiting until the February changeover, Quinn says.
"A sign of success for us is when the kids are crying because they don't want to leave."
Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.
Preview
Lied Discovery Children's Museum
9 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays, noon-5 p.m. Sundays (also open Monday school holidays), through early February
833 Las Vegas Blvd. North
$8.50-$9.50 (382-5437; lcdm.org)