As September draws to a close, it occurs to me that many, many stories are left untold from my Labor Day trip to Pennsylvania. Today we will start at the Hagen History Center which serves Erie County, Pa. They have two campuses and we visited the one on Erie’s Millionaire’s Row.
The campus includes two historic mansions, a new building for exhibit space and a historic carriage house which is home to a gift shop and library/reading room. This is where you buy your tickets.
My friend had already been there and was excited for me to see a specific exhibit but she held her cards close. She didn’t show her hand until we were in the room and compared it to throwing me a surprise party.
What was so special?
They have Frank Lloyd Wright’s office.
You read that right. The walls, floors, furniture, typewriters, pencils and protractors. They have it all. It even has a unique smell that I couldn’t quite identify- aged wood, pipe tobacco, and brilliance?
And that remark about this being like a surprise party? This was way better than a party.
This is Frank Lloyd Wright’s San Francisco field office which he used while working on California projects. It was disassembled and sold to a private collector long ago before spending some time behind glass at the Heinz Architectural Center at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.
Now at the Hagen in Erie, the office is no longer behind glass – you can walk through it! This is his desk! The office is relatively small with room for a desk, two guest chairs and a couch.
Those guest chairs, if you want to call them that, look rather unwelcoming to me.
This is the workroom. Notice the windows feature the image of the actual San Francisco view.
The view as you enter.
The secretary’s typewriter.
And her desk with the view.
And here’s the man himself keeping a sharp eye on visitors.
Walking through this space was near magical and I recommend going to see it if you are a fan of his work. Want to visit? Get more info here.
Also, come back tomorrow and we will have a look at his car!!!! It’s absolutely fabulous.
Cleveland’s west side neighborhood known as Tremont would be a quiet place if not for the decision made more than forty years ago to film portions of a low budget Christmas movie at a house on West 11th Street.
Those responsible for the movie magic behind A Christmas Story needed a large downtown department store in a city that would accommodate filming of a Christmas parade in late winter. They found exactly that in Cleveland where the historic Higbee Department Store had agreed to leave up their over-the-top Christmas decorations through the new year in 1983. The city streets and store exterior were transformed into 1940 Hohmanm, Indiana for middle-of-the-night parade filming.
Hohman was a fictionalized version of Jean Shepherd’s hometown of Hammond, near Chicago. The movie is based on a collection of Shepherd’s semi-autobiographical short stories. Ironically, he grew up on Cleveland Street, perhaps a bit of foreshadowing of what was to come.
After securing the department store location, there was a long list of places and things that needed to be scouted. Much of the film was made in Canada and a lot of the interior shots were done on a sound stage in Canada. However, when they stumbled into 11th Street and found the now infamous two-story yellow home with a large front porch and picture window looking into a remarkably unremodeled front room, movie magic was alive and well.
This is the story our tour guide shared when we toured the house earlier this month. He shared lots of other stories including how difficult it was to track down the homeowner only to find that he was nursing a drink in the back of a neighborhood pub just down the street literally every time they went in looking for help to locate him. He had no interest in their scheme to rent and stage his home to look like a forties era middle class household for a Christmas flick. That is, he had no interest until they offered to pay him $60,000 for his trouble. So he moved out and gave them free reign to do as they pleased.
The house was purchased several years ago and transformed into a museum. A lot next door serves as a very small parking lot. Next to that is a home turned Airbnb where you can stay. They call it the Bumpus House. If you don’t understand that name, you really need to watch the movie. You can also stay in the Christmas Story House where a portion of the house is an Airbnb and where overnight guests have the run of the home outside of tour hours.
Across the street, another house has been turned into an artifact museum and one next to that is a gift shop. A garage in between is home to a 1939 fire truck and an Oldsmobile like Ralphie’s Old Man drove.
The street is narrow. The place is popular. There’s precious little parking and signs at every driveway boldly demanding that visitors not block their driveway. Personally, I would either have to move or lose my mind if I lived in this neighborhood. It’s just too busy with the tourists to not make a person crazy.
Still, it’s a neat place to visit and a fun little tour if you enjoy the movie as much as I do. It wasn’t a smash hit when it was released but has since become a cult classic with so many quotable lines and vignettes that many of us can recall the entire script by heart.
If you’re not familiar, it’s about a boy named Ralphie and his quest for a Red Ryder BB Gun during one special childhood Christmas, America was still on the cusp of joining World War II. Entertainment came from gathering around the radio with his parents and brother. Fun with neighborhood friends sometimes led to trouble and education was a mixture of elementary school classroom and the flaring temper of his father who “wove a tapestry of obscenity, that as far as we know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan.”
Ralphie calls his dad “the Old Man.”
You can pose in front of the Christmas tree with a Red Ryder B.B. Gun and a blue bowling ball like the one the Old Man received. You can take a selfie with the infamous leg lamp in the window and even crawl under the kitchen sink like when Ralphie’s kid brother Randy did because he was sure their dad was going to kill Ralphie.
Two people on our tour wore pink bunny suits similar to the one Ralphie received from his aunt Clara for Christmas that year. The Old Man said that Ralphie looked like “a deranged Easter bunny” in that costume and this description wasn’t far off for the people we saw wearing their own. It was ridiculously hot that day so the teenaged girl and middle aged man who donned these costumes had to be truly dedicated to their cause and willing to suffer heat stroke in the name of enjoying the moment.
Either that or they lost a bet.
Speaking of people on the tour – manage your expectations if you are an introvert or really hate crowds. There were forty people on this tour and that was about twenty too many for my comfort level. We made do and it was fine but it was a little overwhelming in these small spaces.
In the museum across the street, you’ll find vintage toys from Higbee’s Christmas window, some original costumes, letters and other memorabilia.
I am not always a fan of guided tours but this one was a good compromise. The tour guide kept everyone together to tell us stories and then turned us loose to explore on our own in the house and the museum.
If you go, remember, parking is a pain so this might be a good time to take an Uber. If you have to drive, be courteous and don’t do anything that will get your car towed.
While it may be tempting to go at Christmas (because how fun would that be?), I will tell you now that this will be no fun at all. If it was this nuts in July, imagine how awful it will be in December.
The Cincinnati History Museum is just one of the museums inside the Cincinnati Museum Center.
The most striking feature here is Public Landing, an imagined landing with a riverboat and cobblestone streets that take you to a photography studio, a dressmaker and an apothocary. Step aboard the boat and explore inside the buildings to learn about life in this river city in the 1860s.
Vintage advertising pieces, a streetcar, and items made in Cincinnati provide insight into the city’s history as well as life in America. Another special thing here is an intricate model of Cincinnati in the forties complete with trains. The kiddos especially love this and I could have stood there all day too.
If you’ve been following along here, you know that these museums are housed in Union Terminal, a gorgeous art deco train station that’s worth a visit. In fact, if you’re looking for rainy day fun, a reprieve from the summer heat, or if you just like museums, the Cincinnati Museum Center is a terrific destination for a day trip.
The Cincinnati Museum Center houses four quality museums including a natural history museum.
You can buy one pass that gets you into this museum, the Cincinnati History Museum and a children’s museum. Admission to the Holocaust museum and the IMAX experience are extra. We did the basic pass, opting to come back another day to explore the rest.
I was most excited for the Cincinnati history museum but, as it turns out, this one was my favorite of the two. They won me over at the front door with the Neil Armstrong Space Exploration Gallery. Using photos, some original artifacts, a few reproductions and a little technology, they do a good job telling this Ohio native’s story as the first person to walk on the moon.
Dinosaur Hall was a lot of fun and there was a jaw dropping long horn bison to appreciate as well. I had no idea such a beast ever existed. It was as big as a car!
Another highlight was going through a simulated cave and the joy of seeing a living bat up close. Lots of people find bats threatening or frightening but I think they’re neat little guys!
I learned that, in geologic terms, we are living in the Anthropocene Age. You know, it has never crossed my mind to wonder about this. I’m probably not alone in my failure to consider my place in the grand scheme of time. In case you’re wondering, Anthro means human and cene means recent. The name basically means the humans have left a lasting mark on the planet.
No kidding.
This is just one reason I enjoy museums so much. Sometimes they feature interesting or pretty things to enjoy and they often show you things you didn’t know existed. If you’re paying attention, a good museum will always give you something to think about and hopefully an idea to revisit another day.
There’s something for everyone here including some thought provoking stuff you might not expect to see. Learn more about the museum here and about the building that houses it here.
It’s an art deco masterpiece. It’s a center for museums and enlightenment. It’s an amazing place to pass a day.
It’s Cincinnati Union Terminal and home to the Cincinnati Museum Center. This building houses museums dedicated to natural history, Cincinnati history, the Holocaust and even a children’s museum. Honestly though, my favorite thing to do here is to just walk around and look at the building.
Construction was completed in 1933 and there are some incredible art deco touches like this ceiling.
The font!
And murals. Holy Batman and Robin! Look at this incredible artwork!
Isn’t it amazing? Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the ice cream parlor we nearly missed.
It’s an incredible building and it’s still home to an Amtrak station but this gorgeous place has been through a lot over the decades. Train services were suspended in 1972, it was a shopping mall for a while and a portion of the building was demolished.
I feel fortunate that we have this amazing place to visit and enjoy. Perhaps someday I’ll buy a train ticket and catch an Amtrak to adventure!
Wealthy people who spend their resources creating something affordable for others to enjoy are some of my favorite people. It’s even better when what they create disguises learning with fun.
Once upon a time, there was a couple named Edward and Edith Deeds. He was a noted industrialist and they were well known as Dayton, Ohio elite. Their list of contributions to the world and to Dayton is pretty lengthy but the one I want to talk about is Carillon Historical Park.
This 65 acre park and museum center is a terrific day trip for any history buff or anyone looking for a fun way to learn about something different.
You enter through a visitors center and rather large museum. Here you’ll find exhibits about the stories that make Dayton special. Did you know that Dayton gave the world the cash register and the electric automobile self starter?
Under this roof, you’ll find everything from an enormous collection of gorgeous antique cash registers to a working carousel you can ride on. There are antique toys, Frigidaire appliances and artwork. Theres an inexplicably large collection of vintage beer steins and pictures of entertainers who fare from the Gem City.
There’s a ton of neat stuff to see.
And then you go outside to a village made up of recreated buildings that are historically important. I told you earlier this week about the incredible Wright Brothers tribute. There’s also a 19th century school house, an early tavern, a small filling station and print shop. There’s a museum of transportation where you can walk through train and trolley cars that are so ornate they put our modern public transit vehicles to shame.
One of the most moving museums is about the 1913 flood. They use a combination of pictures, artifacts and sound to tell deeply personal and moving accounts of what it was like. There’s an imagine of people using telephone lines to escape. Sounds effects convincingly transport you to another time. The blue line on the building’s exterior represents the flood line and will break your heart. It’s so high you have to stand back to even see it.
This park was dedicated in 1950 and still grows. In fact, it is vibrant. There are so many interesting things to see here that it is well worth the $12 adult admission.
In case you are wondering, they do have a Carillon here. Known as the Deeds Carillon, it is 151 feet tall and has 57 bells, making it the largest Carillon in Ohio. And like an idiot, I didn’t even think to snap a picture of it. Next trip!
This place reminds me a lot of Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. It’s smaller than Greenfield but it’s also cheaper and closer to home for my Ohio readers – perfect for a late summer day trip!
Next time, we’ll talk about where we ate. Meanwhile, plan your trip to this fabulous place by learning more here. Oh, and that carousel? It’s just a dollar a ride!
