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Section: Life & Leisure
Revisiting a Well-Aged Fossil: The Science Museum
By Ed Adamczyk
For a supposedly past-its-prime and economically imperiled area, Western New York offers “things to do” lists of concerts, events and attractions that seem to go on forever. It is Buffalo’s cultural touchstones, the ones that have been and will be there seemingly to eternity, that often move down the list of preferred places to go. The Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site, for example — all significant and satisfying local institutions, but when is the last time you actually visited them?
To put it more bluntly, who was President the last time you saw the pre-Bodyworlds interior of the Buffalo Museum of Science?
I remember elementary school bus trips to the Science Museum, perched high above the Kensington Expressway on Humboldt Parkway, its copper dome of a planetarium atop a squat and massive fortress that was state-of-the-art when it opened in 1929. Back then (the Eisenhower administration) it had a tomb-like, neglected feel to it.
I remember dark chambers of taxidermied animals, and a decaying feeling. The museum had bad lighting, exhibits tattered and scary, and a cobwebbed, grandma’s-attic sensibility.
You should see it now.
Science (capital “S,” Science) is an extremely broad topic, with atoms and galaxies and everything in between, and the modern world understands the crucial nature of better understanding it.
Name any topic — environmental issues, artificial joints, gardening, food, medicine, throwing a curveball — and a basic grounding in science is helpful, if not imperative, in getting a grip on an informed opinion. Thus do schools, at every level, lean heavily on equipping students with science skills.
The modern Buffalo Museum of Science, still at its old location in a neighborhood calmer and safer than many suburbanites think, has ample parking, a restaurant and a flashy and sparkling approach to its subject. It is well-lit, well-organized and a delight to visit. It includes a research library and an adjacent magnet school.
The recent Bodyworlds presentation, of human body parts displayed like art treasures, drew 160,000 visitors to the museum before it closed in October, and it served notice that Buffalo has a gallery of science worth seeing.
There remain familiar exhibits, of whales, mushrooms and mastodon jawbones found at an archeological dig near Rochester, but the place is invested with a surprisingly lively attitude about it. The vitality of it all is a wonder.
“It’s been a slow conversion, but we’re getting there,” says marketing director Amy Biber. “We have a ‘science studio’ feel.”
The Museum is collections-based (and owners of 700,000 items) and thus not a “science center.” Biber tells me that “people want to see more of our collections, so we’re beginning themed exhibits.”
The current show is Good Vibrations: The Science of Sound, from October 31 to January 31, and music will be prominent throughout the run.
The Alex Rene Big Band will perform in the cavernous and elegantly-marbled main room on the evening of November 6, one of a series of scheduled concerts on Friday nights. If you’ve never considered dancing the night away in a science museum, you’ll understand the changes this institution, which can trace its lineage to an 1836 Buffalo cultural society, has undergone.
Later in 2010 comes Sesame Street Presents the Body, what Biber described as “Bodyworlds for little ones,” and fundraisers that include the April 23 “Beerology: Science on Tap” that will explain the history and science of beer, and yes, will include tastings; “Starlight, Drink and Bites” on July 24, with wine-drinking and decidedly non-scientific New Age entertainment; and a banquet and indoor scavenger hunt on November 7.
Weekends are given over to local music in the renovated auditorium, and the Buffalo Astronomical Society drags telescopes up to the roof for public stargazing on selected evenings.
Beer, wine, music and open telescope night are unexpected treats in an old fossil of a building with a sober and straitlaced reputation. We have lately learned — the young in school and most of the rest of us through cable television — that science, as it impacts nature and technology, has a wild side, and the Buffalo Museum of Science has given itself an exciting overhaul that reflects modern perspectives on the subject. Unlike science repositories in some cities, it has not turned itself into a kid-specific playground, but instead has become a stimulating and fascinating portal to understanding everything around us.
This remarkable makeover came as a startling surprise to me. Like many adults I enjoy the gallery approach to learning, but avoided this one; I still recall the long-ago spookiness of the place, I guess.
Move the Buffalo Museum of Science closer to the top of your “things to do” list and you’ll be rewarded. And pleasantly surprised.
The Buffalo Museum of Science, 1020 Humboldt Parkway in Buffalo, is open daily. Call 896-5200 or visit www.sciencebuff.org for more information.
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