Brooklyn Children's Museum
145 Brooklyn Avenue | also 155 Brooklyn Avenue | Crown Heights | built 1977
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1899
The Brooklyn Institute founds the first children's museum in the United States
The museum was founded on December 16, 1899, in the Adams House, after the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences proposed it. The city supplied roughly $70,000 a year on top of donations, and visits grew fast, with monthly attendance topping 13,000 by October 1905. It is described as the first children's museum in the United States.
“The Museum was founded following a proposal from the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences (now the Brooklyn Museum) on December 16, 1899, in the Adams House.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1930
Monthly visitors reach 60,000 as the museum thrives in the Depression
By October 1930 the museum was drawing 60,000 visitors a month. It had opened a Smith House annex in 1929, and during the 1930s the Works Progress Administration sent it hundreds of workers. One of them, Ellis Credle, painted murals before turning to a career as an author.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1975
The museum moves into a new space beneath Brower Park
In 1975 the museum moved into a new space under Brower Park, at St. Mark's and Brooklyn Avenues, after the Victorian houses that had been its home were demolished. The underground gallery suited its changing exhibits. The museum had begun with natural science for urban children and turned toward technology and cultural awareness after World War II.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2008
A $43 million expansion reopens the museum as New York City's first green museum
Work began in 2005 on a $43 million expansion meant to nearly double the museum's size and handle more than 400,000 visitors a year. The expanded museum reopened on September 20, 2008. The museum says it was the first in the city to use geothermal wells to heat and cool its building.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2023
A Brooklyn Public Library branch opens inside the museum building
A section of the museum's building now houses the Brower Park branch of Brooklyn Public Library, which opened in July 2023. The conversion came out of a broader partnership linking the museum and the library system.
“A section of the museum's building was converted into space for the Brower Park branch of Brooklyn Public Library... It opened in July 2023.”
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Brooklyn Children's MuseumWikipedia
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