The National Museum of Crime and Punishment is conveniently located near the Chinatown Metro in Washington, DC. We all know how big of a fan I am of free or very inexpensive museums I am, but this isn't one of them. The decor is post modern which reflects the old fashioned nature of the building and much of the items in it.
The museum starts with items of medieval torture on display. Some are actual relics while others are reproductions that you can touch. It turns to more colonial with stocks and examples of punishable crimes of the day. Next are some exhibits about pirates, the wild, wild west, then Bonnie and Clyde. Bonnie and Clyde has a car that was used in a movie which truly brings the whole exhibit together.
Following Bonnie and Clyde, the historical chronology of the museum is abandoned but they still manage to keep it together. The age of mobsters and speakeasys are well displayed, with a lot of mobsters' hats on display, then a section united by a practice safe (which may imply bank robbing) but it's mostly about very famous people and their crimes (mostly misdemeanors), but really ended up being a little less united but cool nonetheless. The next room is about mass killers. There is a touch of confusion, as at first I thought it was about people on death row and methods of execution, but some notorious killers never got the shot to be arraigned. Still, it gave museum goers the opportunity to, just for a second, enter the minds of mass murderers.
The museum theme changes, and goes to a "live the crime" type section. It starts with the walls becoming faux brick lined, then you get sent to booking. After taking a finger print, you get issued a card with your crime on it (I was charged with prostitution). There are famous mug shots of people lining the hall between the "booking" and the line up. The lineup is behind a legitimate one way glass with cutouts of people on either side, making for some great photo opportunities. Then there was a polygraph (a cool effort, but just speaking through off my blood pressure). The next section had a holding cell (complete with toilet), with an "escape hatch"--if you dare-- to the prison portion.
The prison portion is a history and a sociological study of prison life. While there is Al Capone's cell, inmate drawings and other historical nuggets, but there are also a lot of prison life things. There was an extensive collection of tattoos and their prison meaning. The innocent butterfly tattoo...not that innocent.
Again, there was a small section on execution, and the history of law enforcement on different levels. For the more morbidly intrigued, there are an electric chair and a gas chamber that was actually used. I thought it was cool. My travel companion du jour did not really agree. Wrapping up the true part to the museum is a "CSI" lab, interactive with an "actual" crime that took place in the first bit of that section. There was an autopsy table complete with a tall man on it with fatal wounds, examples of dental identification records. At the end of the exhibits, you could choose to go up or down, if you go down, you'll be on the real set of America's Most Wanted. No John Walsh though. I guess you can't win them all.
The museum is a great option though maybe not for kids of all ages. It was a lot of money but it was worth it. The way it was broken down made perfect sense to me, and I appreciated how they didn't try to cram everything about the history of crime and punishment into the galleries. In my opinion, a museum should leave you wanting more, but not have you leave completely uneducated. The National Museum of Crime and Punishment does this perfectly.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Levine Museum of the New South (Charlotte, NC)
The Levine Museum of the New South is located conveniently in the middle of downtown Charlotte. There is parking that can be validated for you when you pay for your admission. Tickets to get in are only $5 for a student, and I failed to take note of the other prices.
The main permanent exhibit is titled "From cotton fields to skyscrapers". It begins with an intriguing short film about Charlotte's post Civil War history. It addresses racism that was present, and how after the Civil War the races had very different life styles. The first room in the exhibit has a small cabin which represents what a sharecropper and their family would have lived in and in this cabin are very hands on. You can touch the bed, pick up the plates, etc. In this room is also a cotton gin that would have been used in this 1865-1885 timeframe, and the ugly history of the KKK is addressed. What Levine does bravely is it addresses how racism was spread through early movies, and the movies implied racial superiority that many people took to be true.
The next room has a slightly more advances Charlotte with a factory for spinning cotton into threads. There is another little example of a home from the time complete with a stocked pantry. In this room, the communities created in the mills are shown through photographs and how coworkers became the lifeblood of an entire neighborhood. Also touched upon is the tradition of courtship, which actually made it make slightly more sense to me as some, mostly religious, communities, still utilize this practice.
The third room of the exhibit shows a street in downtown Charlotte in the between Wars years. There is a small store to buy appliances of the day, a clothing store (with ADULT sized dress-up clothes), a radio recording studio, a chapel, and a barbershop. The best part about this section is how able the visitor is to interact with it. You can get dressed up in the clothing store, then go to the chapel, sit in the barer chair, or listen to the radio.
The fourth room, separated by a film about World War two, addresses the racial strife of the 1960s. There is a segregated water fountain, a small example of a living room of the day complete with a TV and TV dinners. There is even a counter representative of the sit ins that were held though the 1960s. A unique thing the museum did was it had about six different perspectives of racial integration and peoples beliefs of what should be done. There were radical KKK members and leaders of the Civil Rights Movements, and people in the middle.
The final piece of the exhibit explains how Charlotte became a center for banking during the 1980s, and how Charlotte culture has improved because of this, such as larger hospitals making Charlotte their home, as well as sporting events making a home in Charlotte.
To make a few notes about the permanent exhibit, the theme of the home in Charlotte through history was powerful, from the Sharecroppers home to the TV and TV dinners reflecting giant progress in only about a century. It's a poignant notion that, no pun intended, brings it home to visitors, because people can relate to a living room.
The temporary exhibits were about emergency preparedness and about cultural differences. The one about cultural differences I believe is a bit more permanent but not static in it's contents. It has a kitchen of what would be an Asian Indian-American family, indicating how there are Indian foods and spices, but those aren't the only contents. There is a small wardrobe of Indian sari's in adult and child sizes. Very cool in this exhibit is a wire representation of a tall man with markings on the floor indicating how close people stand in some countries compared to others. Also addressed is a strong Vietnamese and Hispanic cultures in Charlotte.
Levine Museum of the New South addresses the dark history of the south, but shows how at least this sprawling metropolis is attempting to become a city to compete with the north. The permanent exhibit has a lot to offer to people of many different age groups and kept me intrigued the entire time I was walking through. They take a risk in allowing people to pick up everything right down to the plates off the table, but it pays off, because it adds that much of a quality of "They had to eat/sleep/work too".
The main permanent exhibit is titled "From cotton fields to skyscrapers". It begins with an intriguing short film about Charlotte's post Civil War history. It addresses racism that was present, and how after the Civil War the races had very different life styles. The first room in the exhibit has a small cabin which represents what a sharecropper and their family would have lived in and in this cabin are very hands on. You can touch the bed, pick up the plates, etc. In this room is also a cotton gin that would have been used in this 1865-1885 timeframe, and the ugly history of the KKK is addressed. What Levine does bravely is it addresses how racism was spread through early movies, and the movies implied racial superiority that many people took to be true.
The next room has a slightly more advances Charlotte with a factory for spinning cotton into threads. There is another little example of a home from the time complete with a stocked pantry. In this room, the communities created in the mills are shown through photographs and how coworkers became the lifeblood of an entire neighborhood. Also touched upon is the tradition of courtship, which actually made it make slightly more sense to me as some, mostly religious, communities, still utilize this practice.
The third room of the exhibit shows a street in downtown Charlotte in the between Wars years. There is a small store to buy appliances of the day, a clothing store (with ADULT sized dress-up clothes), a radio recording studio, a chapel, and a barbershop. The best part about this section is how able the visitor is to interact with it. You can get dressed up in the clothing store, then go to the chapel, sit in the barer chair, or listen to the radio.
The fourth room, separated by a film about World War two, addresses the racial strife of the 1960s. There is a segregated water fountain, a small example of a living room of the day complete with a TV and TV dinners. There is even a counter representative of the sit ins that were held though the 1960s. A unique thing the museum did was it had about six different perspectives of racial integration and peoples beliefs of what should be done. There were radical KKK members and leaders of the Civil Rights Movements, and people in the middle.
The final piece of the exhibit explains how Charlotte became a center for banking during the 1980s, and how Charlotte culture has improved because of this, such as larger hospitals making Charlotte their home, as well as sporting events making a home in Charlotte.
To make a few notes about the permanent exhibit, the theme of the home in Charlotte through history was powerful, from the Sharecroppers home to the TV and TV dinners reflecting giant progress in only about a century. It's a poignant notion that, no pun intended, brings it home to visitors, because people can relate to a living room.
The temporary exhibits were about emergency preparedness and about cultural differences. The one about cultural differences I believe is a bit more permanent but not static in it's contents. It has a kitchen of what would be an Asian Indian-American family, indicating how there are Indian foods and spices, but those aren't the only contents. There is a small wardrobe of Indian sari's in adult and child sizes. Very cool in this exhibit is a wire representation of a tall man with markings on the floor indicating how close people stand in some countries compared to others. Also addressed is a strong Vietnamese and Hispanic cultures in Charlotte.
Levine Museum of the New South addresses the dark history of the south, but shows how at least this sprawling metropolis is attempting to become a city to compete with the north. The permanent exhibit has a lot to offer to people of many different age groups and kept me intrigued the entire time I was walking through. They take a risk in allowing people to pick up everything right down to the plates off the table, but it pays off, because it adds that much of a quality of "They had to eat/sleep/work too".
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Billy Graham Library (Charlotte, NC)
The Billy Graham Library is located just outside of the city limits of Charlotte, North Carolina, off of the Billy Graham Parkway. Admission is free, but timed, and the grounds incorporate his childhood home, and the grave of his wife.
The first thing you'll notice as you drive up is someone stopping you as you enter with your "Parking Pass". I took the pass from the guard, and hung it obediently on my rear view mirror. As I got out of the car, I heard relaxing medatative music as a gently curving trail led between a silo, garden, house, and a barn with a glass cross on it. Upon entering the "barn" which was actually the library and getting the timed ticket, the exhibit started with a talking cow. Yes. A talking cow. She went through the early days of Billy Graham when he helped to take care of his family's dairy farm. The next part made me realize what this museum was going to be about.
The second part was a short film about three peoples' lives were before they realized their lives needed a major life change. Hmm... I wonder what changed their life? The following two rooms have films about the early life as an Evangelical minister. The third room has an interesting living exhibit using light and sound to enhance certain artifacts from the life that Graham and his wife led together. The artifacts are chosen wisely and reflect accurately how much religion was a part of her life before Billy. The fourth room explains, through a prerecorded segment, how Billy Graham took full advantages of the advents media presented during the 1940s and the 1950s. As I left that room, a docent indicated that a lot of the rest of the museum would be about the man behind Rev. Graham: Jesus.
Through the rest of the museum, the items on the walls covered his co-preachers with his church and values that a Christian should live by. In the middle of these rooms were various gifts and programs from his preaching throughout the world. As the museum ends, there is an awesome encompassing room with a Berlin Wall diorama that explains how Billy Graham broke the "Iron Curtain" to bring his message to communist Soviets.
I went to the Billy Graham Library mostly because it just seemed interesting, and I know how important religion is in more of the parts of the United States except for the areas I grew up. Although I was hoping for more of a historical look at the Evangelical movement in the United States, the conversion experience was something to admire too. The curators carefully chose the items to put on display to be of interest to visitors who may not be Christians. The scripture on the wall was a little bit repetitive, but they are important to the mission that Evangelists.
The house outside of the library was the house that Graham grew up in. It was picked up, moved, and made to look as it did as Graham was growing up. There wasn't much to the house, just a small velvet-roped walk through.
It was a great museum to go to, but it probably shouldn't be advertised as a museum/library and more as a cultural center. I suppose it was a museum of Evangelist religion, but I still think the designation could be debated. This does not take away from the experience. The curators chose film, audio, captions and items very carefully and each room and case follows through to the next. The museum gets major points for being well staffed and with the audio, keeps the people moving through at a good pace in the beginning which is important to allow the crowd to disperse quicker and have more people have more room to walk. It is a cautious recommendation for the Charlotte, NC area, as if you have strong religious feelings that do not align with Billy Graham you may not like it.
The first thing you'll notice as you drive up is someone stopping you as you enter with your "Parking Pass". I took the pass from the guard, and hung it obediently on my rear view mirror. As I got out of the car, I heard relaxing medatative music as a gently curving trail led between a silo, garden, house, and a barn with a glass cross on it. Upon entering the "barn" which was actually the library and getting the timed ticket, the exhibit started with a talking cow. Yes. A talking cow. She went through the early days of Billy Graham when he helped to take care of his family's dairy farm. The next part made me realize what this museum was going to be about.
The second part was a short film about three peoples' lives were before they realized their lives needed a major life change. Hmm... I wonder what changed their life? The following two rooms have films about the early life as an Evangelical minister. The third room has an interesting living exhibit using light and sound to enhance certain artifacts from the life that Graham and his wife led together. The artifacts are chosen wisely and reflect accurately how much religion was a part of her life before Billy. The fourth room explains, through a prerecorded segment, how Billy Graham took full advantages of the advents media presented during the 1940s and the 1950s. As I left that room, a docent indicated that a lot of the rest of the museum would be about the man behind Rev. Graham: Jesus.
Through the rest of the museum, the items on the walls covered his co-preachers with his church and values that a Christian should live by. In the middle of these rooms were various gifts and programs from his preaching throughout the world. As the museum ends, there is an awesome encompassing room with a Berlin Wall diorama that explains how Billy Graham broke the "Iron Curtain" to bring his message to communist Soviets.
I went to the Billy Graham Library mostly because it just seemed interesting, and I know how important religion is in more of the parts of the United States except for the areas I grew up. Although I was hoping for more of a historical look at the Evangelical movement in the United States, the conversion experience was something to admire too. The curators carefully chose the items to put on display to be of interest to visitors who may not be Christians. The scripture on the wall was a little bit repetitive, but they are important to the mission that Evangelists.
The house outside of the library was the house that Graham grew up in. It was picked up, moved, and made to look as it did as Graham was growing up. There wasn't much to the house, just a small velvet-roped walk through.
It was a great museum to go to, but it probably shouldn't be advertised as a museum/library and more as a cultural center. I suppose it was a museum of Evangelist religion, but I still think the designation could be debated. This does not take away from the experience. The curators chose film, audio, captions and items very carefully and each room and case follows through to the next. The museum gets major points for being well staffed and with the audio, keeps the people moving through at a good pace in the beginning which is important to allow the crowd to disperse quicker and have more people have more room to walk. It is a cautious recommendation for the Charlotte, NC area, as if you have strong religious feelings that do not align with Billy Graham you may not like it.
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