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If You're Ever In St. Louis, Missouri...
By Anne Merle
If you're ever in St. Louis, Mo. with your children, do NOT miss the City Museum, noting that its name is misleading. It should be called The Experience! Picture a curving entry wall built with metal science lab pans and a floor that's an ever-growing mosaic of cast-off tile fragments, leading you to the throat of an enormous whale, which you can climb up or slide down. This creative place for families has to be experienced to be believed.
Created by artists and engineers, the museum recycles an astonishing variety of industrial castoffs in its construction and decoration, leading every family member on an adventure of the imagination. Watch your kids climb through tunnels, up the walls and across a fluttering ceiling, through huge old tanning vats to secret spots in a multi-level "forest" to search for hundreds of frogs and lizards painted on the "trees." You'll all discover the giant aquarium from two different floors, and look out for the waves in the tidal cave. And that's just the first two floors!
Adults and kids can explore the building's exterior, recently transformed into MonstroCity, a three-story "human habitrail." When weather permits you can explore a castle tower, aerial tunnels and balance on a plane's wing.
On upper levels of this old warehouse, you'll find hands-on art activities, glass blowing and shoelace making demonstrations, a "low-tech" circus, architecture museum and a collection of stuff found in old outhouses. Good stuff; trust me.
If that's not enough, send the kids on a hunt for the world's largest pair of underpants while you relax over coffee, lunch or ice cream at one of several snack spots in the museum. (For another grin, examine the surface of every column while you dine at Samwiches in the City.)
And the newest unique experience under the City Museum roof, open for its 2002 Fifth Anniversary and continuing to grow to an impressive 7,500 square feet, is the third-floor, indoor skateboarding park. With ramps, obstacles and spectator lounges, it promises to become another popular part of this active Midwestern destination.
City Museum is always growing and changing, inviting return visits. Enjoy it all at 701 N. 15th Street, Wednesday through Sunday, for a mere $7.50 per person for the Museum or $10 if you also visit MonstroCity or the Skateboarding Park. There are small fees for some crafts and parking. For more information, call 314-231-CITY or log on towww.citymuseum.org.