Cincinnati Museum Center

The Cincinnati Museum Center is a museum complex operating out of the Cincinnati Union Terminal in the Queensgate neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. It houses museums, theater, a library, and a symphonic pipe organ, as well as special traveling exhibitions.

Museums

The museum provides a home to five organizations:

Cincinnati History Museum
Museum of Natural History & Science
Robert D. Lindner Family Omnimax Theater
Cincinnati History Library and Archives
Duke Energy Children's Museum
Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust and Humanity Center

Museum of Natural History & Science

The Museum of Natural History & Science includes a space called Dinosaur Hall, featuring skeletons and fossils, including skeletons in the Galeamopus, Daspletosaurus, and Torvosaurus genera. The Torvosaurus skeleton, installed in 2018, is the most complete skeleton of the genus, at 55 percent complete, and the only Torvosaurus skeleton publicly exhibited.

The natural history museum also includes a reproduction of a limestone cave. The exhibit, titled "The Cave", was first installed as "The Cavern" in the museum's Gilbert Avenue location in 1967, ten years after the location opened. It was reinstalled in Union Terminal around 1994. It was designed to resemble Mammoth Cave National Park, the longest cave system in the world, in nearby Kentucky. Workers with extensive cave knowledge sculpted the cave from gunite. The exhibit has two levels and spans 500 feet. It includes an underground stream and vertical cavities (dome pits), one of which is 40 feet high.

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The Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center, operating independent of the museum center, occupies 12,000 square feet in the lower level and mezzanine of the terminal. The center moved to the space in January 2019, tripling the Holocaust museum's exhibition space.-->

Exhibits

File:Cincinnati Union 11.jpg|Dinosaur Hall

File:Cincinnati Union Terminal 43.jpg|Public Landing recreation

File:Cincinnati Union Terminal 42.jpg|Cincinnati in Motion exhibit

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Holiday Junction is an annual rail-themed event at the museum center.

History

Beginning in the early 1980s, the Cincinnati Historical Society and Cincinnati Museum of Natural History were searching for larger spaces. Both had their origins in the early-mid 1800s, and the historical society was interested in creating a museum.

The museum as a whole opened on November 10, 1990, though it had its "grand opening day" on November 2, 1991, with the two museum's first permanent exhibits there. The original members of the museum center were the Cincinnati Historical Society Library, Cincinnati History Museum, Cincinnati Museum of Natural History, and the Robert D. Lindner Family Omnimax Theater.

Events

One of the museum center's largest events is its annual 1940s Day, a celebration of the decade, every year on the second weekend in August. The event includes a classic car show, swing dancing, big band music, and a vintage costume contest. The museum center began hosting 1940s-themed celebrations during its 75th anniversary celebration in 2008. It celebrates the 1940s, which was the peak passenger traffic period for Union Terminal, especially during World War II.

The museum center is also host to public speakers, including then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaking alongside 2020 candidate Elizabeth Warren in 2016. Mitt Romney held his first presidential rally there in 2012, while then-candidate Barack Obama held a discussion on healthcare in 2008. Presidential nominee John Kerry gave a speech in 2004. In 2002, sitting president George W. Bush made his case for declaring war with Iraq.

Beside speeches, vice president Dan Quayle visited the museum in 1991, and president Dwight D. Eisenhower was greeted by the public, prominent Republicans, and a band in 1952. President Harry S. Truman visited the terminal on five occasions between 1948 and 1952, and Franklin D. Roosevelt visited in 1936.

Collection

The museum center has a collection of materials relating to Union Terminal, including 14 of the architects' drawings of the terminal, the silver trowel used at the cornerstone laying in 1931, the gold key used by Cincinnati mayor Russell Wilson in dedicating the terminal in 1933, the dedication book published by the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, a collection of Union Terminal and Western Hills viaduct photographs taken between 1929 and 1933, a collection of construction photographs, source photographs for the Winold Reiss murals that decorate Union Terminal, Cincinnati Union Terminal Company records for 1940–1963 and 1968–1972, menus from the restaurants housed at Union Terminal, and papers from Save the Terminal Inc.

E.M. Skinner organ

thumb|The Grand E.M. Skinner Concert Organ

The Grand E.M. Skinner Concert Organ is a blend of two former instruments. The primary instrument was the Skinner Opus 660, which was installed at Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church in East Germantown, a neighborhood of Philadelphia. The other portion is an antiphonal division, originally a smaller organ (Skinner Opus 726) in Powel Crosley Jr.'s Cincinnati residence, Pinecroft. The Opus 660 portion speaks from hidden chambers behind grills on either side of the hallway and stairs, grills that formerly fronted the terminal's ticket windows. The Opus 726 portion speaks from a chamber behind a window above the history museum entrance. Both instruments were built in 1929, when the station building began construction. The Skinner Opus 660 was sold to the museum center in 1987, which installed it during its 1990s renovations.

Selected collection highlights

James Pierce Barton - Kentucky Landscape - 1832 - Google Art Project.jpg|James Pierce Barton

John Caspar Wild - View of Cincinnati From Covington - Google Art Project.jpg|John Caspar Wild

Thomas Corwin Lindsay - The Hornets' Nest - Google Art Project.jpg|Thomas Corwin Lindsay

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References

External links

Exhibits at the museum center's opening
Virtual tour of the Cincinnati Museum Center provided by Google Arts & Culture