We Need to Talk About the City Museum

On our last day in St. Louis, we took the kids to the City Museum. Since Dennis loves researching our travel destinations, I personally hadn’t read much about it– I knew only that it was a children’s museum that was “really crazy” and involved “a lot of crawling.” “You’ll love it,” Dennis concluded. And he was right… sort of.

A week after visiting, I find myself still drawn to the place in the same way that Scarlett O’Hara was drawn to Rhett Butler. Essentially, in a world of Ashley Wilkes-approved children’s museums, the City Museum is the only Real Man standing. And like all Real Men, it can be dark. And intense. And dangerous.

Confused? Let me try again. Imagine Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, if Wonka were obsessed with found objects and metal scraps instead of candy. Imagine what would happen if you gave a 10-year-old mad scientist ten million dollars and told him to turn an abandoned shoe factory into a playhouse. Imagine a place built specifically for kids where death and serious injury are not entirely out of the question.

Picture all of these things and you have the City Museum. Are you disturbed yet?

Good. You should be.

Built in 1997 by a self-described ‘idiot savant’ (who also happened to be a world famous sculptor and serial entrepreneur), the City Museum is built entirely from St. Louis’s architectural and industrial castoffs, from the slide made out of assembly-line rollers to the rooftop 1940s-era Ferris Wheel. The museum’s ‘Monstrocity’ is actually built outside the museum and it’s the first thing you see when you arrive– It is so bizarre and fantastical that you’ll stand there for a long moment, struggling to make your brain accept the images your eyes are sending it. At this point, I’m dipping liberally into Flickr’s Creative Commons, because it takes a village to even begin to give you a visual of this place. My poor iPhone simply couldn’t do it justice.

Monstrocity is composed of metal tunnels extending in every direction– many are five stories above the ground. At the top rests a gutted jet, which you can sit inside. At the bottom is an enormous ball pit. My family was dumbstruck and overwhelmed at the sight of it– and we quickly decided to save it for the end of our visit.

 

After paying for admission to the museum and the rooftop ($12 per person and an additional $5 each for the rooftop- eep), we took the elevator up to the top of the building and entered a veritable wonderland of outdoor cray-cray. There was a fountain with stepping stones, which the kids loved. And a giant praying mantis. And a schoolbus with a door that you could open and close yourself.

 

However, I wouldn’t advise exiting through the front door of the bus. Why, you ask?

 

I’ll give you one guess.

 

There was the aforementioned four-story Ferris wheel, which was fantastic and gave my daughter and me an amazing view of the city.

 

There were bizarre structures to climb into and around and on top of.

 

 There was a long, long, long slide that extended from the tip-top of all this stuff down to the rooftop patio.

 

And there was a very high rope-ramp slide, which Bruiser and I  went down together. It was much steeper and faster than I expected it to be, and it ended with Bruiser bumping the back of his head and scraping both elbows when we landed in a heap at the bottom.

Cue the crying.

An employee materialized out of nowhere and asked if he was okay. This was memorable when I look back on it because she was one of only a handful of  employees that I saw during our visit. And it was sort of a problem, because in many cases, there didn’t seem to be  anyone around to monitor the various ladders and tunnels and steep climbing rails and especially, the slides. There are so many slides at the City Museum– and because there was no one, in many cases, standing at the top and telling each person when it was safe to go down, there were a number of collisions on the slides, often when adults came down fast and ran smack into kids. I hit Dennis and Bruiser at one point, hard, and it was painful. Luckily, Dennis was able to shield Bruiser from the impact.

 

The most interesting part of the rooftop was the ten-story slide that went in spirals all the way down to the first floor of the museum. (Fortunately, employees monitor this one.) Dennis and I really wanted to try it out, but my son refused to ride any more slides– so we walked down the staircase, instead.

And that’s where we encountered The Caves.

OMG, The Caves. I am still having nightmares about them.

 

At first they look awesome- We couldn’t wait to explore them. The caves are a vast textured concrete labyrinth of  pathways and tunnels and holes. The problem is that the pathways are impossibly narrow. The tunnels are dwarf-sized. The holes seem specifically designed to entrap anyone weighing more than 100 pounds. And it’s so dark that it’s hard to see anything.

 

This gives you an idea of what I’m talking about.

While the whole thing freaked my 7-year-old son out a little bit, my daughter loved it.  She quickly climbed up a few stones and disappeared into a pitch-black opening that was about the size of a car window.

I gamely tried to follow, but while I could get my body through, it was too narrow for me to wedge my knee in and climb through- and there was nothing for me to grab onto to pull myself up. So I stood there calling to her instead. “I’m right here, Punky!” I said. “Look around up there and then come back to where you hear the sound of my voice!” It was too dark for me to see where she had gone, but I wasn’t too worried- She never goes far. She came back down after a minute or two and looked for a cave entrance that all of us could fit through. We finally found one, but after ten or twenty feet, we were all crawling on our hands and knees. Then the tunnel grew even more narrow. In order to get through it, we’d have to slide on our bellies. Punky went on ahead, but Dennis and I paused.

“I can’t do this,” he said breathlessly. “I’m getting claustrophobic.” This was a major statement from my husband. I have done many, many crazy adventurous things with this man, from jumping down into a hole in a rock in the middle of a river and shooting underneath it back out to the surface to snowmobiling on steep mountains to swimming in shark-infested waters— I have never, ever heard him say “I can’t do this.”

We backed out of the cave and circled around it, straining to catch a glimpse of Punky in the many shadowy nooks and crannies. After a few minutes of searching, she emerged suddenly from a hole in the ground. We breathed a sigh of relief.

“Why don’t we try climbing in the treehouse instead?” Dennis suggested. The treehouse stretched over the caves, and while it was also filled with tunnels and twists and turns and tight spaces, at least it was better-lit.

 

The four of us climbed into a tree and began crawling like gerbils through a narrow tunnel built from welded steel rails and suspended over the ground. For the first time, I took seriously the advice to bring kneepads. Elbow pads would have come in handy, too. And a helmet, for that matter. We got to a point where we could stand on the rails and decided we’d pretty much had it with the climbing. Dennis was wearing shorts and I was carrying my huge purse and we were both sweating like pigs. We just hadn’t been prepared for all the climbing and tunneling– but Punky was excited and wanted to keep exploring.

“Okay, Punky,” Dennis said when we finally found a way down to the ground. “We’re going to be standing right here at the bottom. Look around for a minute, then meet us right here.” She agreed and headed back up.

Minutes passed. Then more minutes. Then even more minutes- This was not typical Punky behavior.

“We need to go look for her,” I said. “I’m sure she’s lost.” We began wandering through the treehouse area, and it wasn’t long before we spotted her up in a tunnel, wailing. This is not a kid who cries in public.

We quickly helped her find a way down. “What happened?” I asked her.

“My leg went through the rails,” she sobbed, “and it was stuck and I couldn’t pull it out, and the more I tried the more it hurt, and I just started screaming for help. And then a dad saw me and he helped me get my foot out. I’m pretty sure I said thank you.”

I noticed a spot on her cheek growing redder as she spoke. “What’s this?” I asked, touching it.

“I hit my face on a rail as I was going down,” she cried.

I felt awful that I hadn’t been with her when it had happened– but here’s the thing about the City Museum. Although you’re technically supposed to stay with your kids at all times while you’re there, in reality it’s pretty much impossible unless you’re a contortionist or you’re still buying your clothing in the children’s department.

 

I mean really, parents. Just try to follow your kid through this thing. I DARE YOU.

 

This picture makes me break out in hives. For all I know, these poor souls are still stuck in the human slinky.

 

And then there are the slides. Your kid can’t sit in your lap, which means that it’s literally impossible to stay with him as he goes down. Who knows what he’s going to encounter at the bottom?

Fortunately, Punky was still up for exploring other parts of the museum- and there was plenty to see.

The museum doesn’t provide maps which, although slightly frustrating, was also a fun, childlike idea. We happened upon a very large dead bug collection, the world’s largest pair of underpants, a bank vault, a human gerbil wheel, vintage pinball machines, a room full of gargoyles taken from old buildings, a hall of mirrors, a circus trapeze, an enormous model train village… I’m sure I’m leaving a lot out. There’s no rhyme or reason to what you find and often, no explanation. It’s surreal. And fun.

My son’s favorite “exhibit” was the no-skateboard ramp.

 

I think my husband kind of liked it, too.

After three hours of wandering around, the kids decided they were too hot and tired for the outdoor Monstrocity. We left with bumps, lumps and bruises as our souvenirs.

 

It wasn’t until we got home that I got a good look at my daughter’s leg. Good Lord. This is a photo of it four days later- You can imagine how it looked a few hours after it happened. And my daughter had a bruise on her face for several days as well.

 

Here’s my son, not to be outdone.

Ever since our visit, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this place. I mean, in a world where jungle gyms and high dive boards have gone the way of the dinosaur and where we now have to sign waivers for our kids to do ridiculously simple things like jump in bounce houses or visit farms,  how is it that the City Museum even exists?

I did a little research and discovered that it hasn’t been easy. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the Museum since it opened in 1997. A boy fell 13 feet to the ground and fractured his skull. A woman lost two fingers. Another woman broke her leg and shattered her ankle going down the slide after her kids. And many reviewers of the City Museum talk about seeing lots of kids who were lost or crying or bruised or bloodied… or stuck in one of those holes in the caves. *shudder*

And yet.

I can’t wait to go back.

I can’t wait to go back because the City Museum is exciting. And scary. And weird. And unexpected. And yes, it’s definitely a little bit dangerous.

But next time, I’ll be prepared, and so will my kids. And I suppose that’s the real reason I’m writing this post. If you go, you should know what you’re getting into ahead of time. This place is not for the very young, or for those who don’t follow directions. If you go, you’ll want to have an adult for every child– and you’ll want to bring along knee pads and elbow pads for everyone and even head lights for the caves if you have them. There’s a coat and bag check at the museum- Use it. Wear long pants and sneakers. Be prepared to exert yourself- to climb and crawl and sweat and squeeze through tight and sometimes dark spaces. And have a talk with your kids ahead of time about what to do if you get separated. Write your phone number on their wristband– The museum staff will call your cell phone if your kid gets lost. And consider going in the spring or fall if you can– We went on a warm summer day and it was hot indoors- I’m guessing it’s not easy to cool a building that large.

This place isn’t just for kids, either. It’s open Friday and Saturday nights until midnight and there’s a bar for the grown-ups- although reviewers say the museum is still packed with kids right up to closing time at midnight, so don’t go at night expecting to have the place to yourself.

The good news is that if all of this sounds too intense for you, there’s ANOTHER children’s museum in St. Louis that I believe was built specifically for all the thousands of families who’ve left the City Museum bruised and battered and vowing never to return. It’s called the Magic House and it gets great reviews.

But if you ask me? That place is for wusses.

 

Image header via Matt Galligan/Flickr