Thursday, July 08, 2010

Please Touch Museum

Philadelphia's Please Touch Museum is a children's museum with the most clever of names.

Please Touch is located in the beautiful, palatial, and historic Memorial Hall in Philadelphia.

It scores lots of points with this dad amongst children's museums for having lots of benches for tired parents to sit on.

Please Touch makes use of corporate sponsorships in a way I haven't seen at other Children's museums, and that I'm not so sure I am comfortable with. I'm accustomed to the signs that recognize the benefactor of an exhibit. Please Touch works sponsor's brands into the exhibits. The grocery store is a Shop Rite, the gas station a Hess, and there is a mock-up McDonald's. I found no other signage at any of these exhibits aknowledging the company that's logo appeared on the exhibit.

In addition to the exhibts just mentioned, some of the other highlights were a SEPTA bus, a mock-up of a monorail, a water play area, and an Alice in Wonderland themed maze and play area.

Less interesting for the little kids than for the adults, is the exhibit on the 1876 Centennial Exhibition explains the history of the building housing the museum and the surrounding buildings and park land. There is large scale model of the sprawling Centennial Exhibition grounds.

The final notable feature of the Please Touch Museum is century old Dentzel Carrousel in an adjoining pavillion. The boy declined the opportunity to ride the carrousel. I've never known the boy to miss the chance to decline a ride on a carrousel.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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