WILL + ELIZABETH

It's hard to describe The City Museum.

Testimonials from previous explorers:

"I've never been in a single space that's sparked my imagination more than the City Museum. It's a never-ending playground for any age... from 3 to 113. It's not a typical playground either. It's a brilliant, whimsical, artistic one... like someone gave a blank check to a committee of precocious 10 year olds and told them they could build absolutely anything.... with zero limitations. Going there is going through a time machine and rediscovering your childhood." - Fred Marion

"A day at the City Museum is like roaming around a museum/playground of childhood doodles brought to life by artists repurposing junkyard treasures. It's fun for all ages to explore and play and wonder what inspired each idea. And as a wedding venue, what a wonderful way to share a unique and memorable experience with friends and family to celebrate a unique and memorable couple!" - Jenny Cole

"It's like a jungle gym for adults with a bunch of interesting, unique statues." - John Sullivan

"When I was a freshman in art school, this guy came and talked about how he was going to convert an old shoe factory into a playground of giant sculptures and architectural salvage and rust. The scale and vision of what he was describing seemed impossible. But in the quarter century since then, artists have continued and expanded that vision. It's like a venn diagram of art and salvage and play with a hint of danger. Absolutely incredible. By far the best museum of any kind I've been to. Other museums have always felt slightly disappointing since it first opened." - Brian Williamson

"It's a weird, beautiful playground made of a collection of cool, abandoned objects and designed with dream logic. It's a wonder that something this massive, organic and handmade exists." - Elizabeth

"You can discover hidden destinations in an industrial setting." - Jane Sullivan

"If Tim Burton and Walt Disney cross-bred a funhouse, a zoo, a playground, and a sculpture garden, and birthed it in an 10-story shoe factory using recycled materials to make an amusement park for adults and kids, alike -- that is the City Museum. It's got a boring name, but is like nothing on the planet you'll ever see and is one of the world's greatest man-made creations." - Will

The City Museum

The City Museum is difficult to describe for those who haven’t experienced it. You can describe the pieces — airplanes, miles of rebar, a 10-story slide, the son of Daniel Boone’s cabin, hundreds of steam-table pans, a Ferris wheel 12 stories above the city, an arcade of old school mechanical carnival games, thousands of recycled bottles, one World’s Largest Pencil, a circus, a series of underground caves, a zoo and aquarium — but this doesn’t do the entire experience justice. Here’s their official description:

Housed in the 600,000 square-foot former International Shoe Company, the museum is an eclectic mixture of children’s playground, funhouse, surrealistic pavilion, and architectural marvel made out of unique, found objects. The brainchild of internationally acclaimed artist Bob Cassilly, a classically trained sculptor and serial entrepreneur, the museum opened for visitors in 1997 to the riotous approval of young and old alike.

Cassilly and his longtime crew of 20 artisans have constructed the museum from the very stuff of the city; and, as a result, it has urban roots deeper than any other institutions’. Reaching no farther than municipal borders for its reclaimed building materials, CITY MUSEUM boasts features such as old chimneys, salvaged bridges, construction cranes, miles of tile, and even two abandoned planes!

“CITY MUSEUM makes you want to know,” says Cassilly. “The point is not to learn every fact, but to say, ‘Wow, that’s wonderful.’ And if it’s wonderful, it’s worth preserving.”