DETROIT (WXYZ) — The Detroit Children's Museum is reopening its doors this Saturday after more than a decade of limited public access.
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The museum on Second Avenue near Amsterdam Street closed to the public in 2012 due to funding issues, leaving it available only for events like school field trips. The COVID-19 pandemic further restricted access beginning in 2020.
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Now, backed by an $800,000 state grant, the museum will once again welcome Detroit Public Schools Community District field trips and hold monthly community days open to the public.
Don Bogart, senior curator at the Detroit Children's Museum, has watched generations of children explore the facility — including his own.
"Penny would come in and play with the dolls, and you just get your head around what it's like to be a kid and how exciting it is," Bogart said.
Kerrie Mitchell Campbell-Mabins, president of the Detroit Public Schools Community District Foundation, said the reopening marks a long-awaited milestone.
"This experience is going to be surreal. To finally see students back in the museum is something I've personally never seen," Mitchell Campbell-Mabins said.
She emphasized the broader importance of keeping the museum accessible.
"It's all about history. Understanding things that happened in the past because it also affects the future. And it's one of those things that should always remain in place," Mitchell Campbell-Mabins said.
The museum houses around 2.5 million artifacts spanning a wide range of subjects and eras.
"Here you can see everything from Yoda and Star Wars to rocks and minerals," Bogart said.
Exhibits highlight the history of communications technology to the treasures of the Middle Ages. Among the collection's rare items are works by ancient scholars.
"You have a book from Cicero. There's Euclid's geometry book from 1491," Bogart said.
Bogart hopes the reopening inspires a new generation of curiosity.
"Who knows, maybe you'll look at a manuscript from the 1300s and say, wow, I can do something like this," Bogart said.
Family and community days will be held on the last Saturday of each month.
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