Museum's Exhibit Allows Stroll Down Main St
September 8, 2008
By CHRIS TRAINOR
Index-Journal Staff Writer
Greenwood, SC - Local residents can now visit Main Street in Uptown Greenwood without stepping foot outdoors.
With this weekend’s re-opening of The Museum Uptown, one of the facility’s new permanent exhibits was unveiled. Main Street in The Museum is a corridor which aims to recreate downtown scenes from Upstate towns from years gone by.
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Patrons stroll through the Main Street exhibit Saturday at the newly renovated Museum in Uptown Greenwood. The Museum re-opened this weekend following nearly 10 months of renovating and upgrades. (Staff photos by Chris Trainor) | And while many have flocked to the remodeled museum in recent days to see the much talked about traveling dinosaur exhibit, “Hatching the Past: The Great Dinosaur Egg Hunt,” museum director Matt Edwards said many have also enjoyed the Main Street display.
“Main Street is the beginning crux of the new kind of hands-on approach to The Museum,” Edwards said. “I have a philosophy about museums, which is that, if you can reach it, you can touch it, because you are going to anyway. For the most part, we really wanted to make Main Street both informative and enjoyable. And, watching the kids come through this place (Saturday) they are having a blast.”
Main Street features a number of faux store fronts that contain interactive components. Among them is a movie theater, a Thomason train station, a C.L. Beaudrot and Sons blacksmith shop, a dress shop, a general store and more.
“We tried to build in a little something for everybody,” Edwards said. “The Main Street Cinema has a video component. This is our one really high-tech piece. You walk into the cinema, which is an art-deco style cinema and it has original seating from the State Theater and a brick fa�ade with mill brick from the No. 5 mill which is currently being torn down. You can come in and we’ve got four interactive video clips you can select from a touch screen monitor.”
The other store fronts also have hands-on elements. In the dress store, visitors can select from an array of material to decorate hats. It the train station, patrons are able to inspect packages which are marked to be shipped on a locomotive (including one crate marked, “Deliver to The Index-Journal.” The contents? A typewriter).
“The hat activity, so far, has been one of the favorites,” Edwards said. “Kids seem to love it. We have some felt and straw hats out, as well as a box of decorative components. Kids can come into the dress shop and actually decorate the hat.”
With the main floor open and the upper floor featuring the popular dinosaur exhibit, Edwards discussed what the bottom floor of The Museum will eventually feature.
“The basement level will be really Greenwood specific,” Edwards said. “It will be about what makes this city, this county unique in the bigger picture. I think there are some really phenomenal stories to tell in this space. I hope that that will be one of the ways can really draw folks into this project.”
Edwards said the Greenwood-specific basement level will open in early 2009.
The Museum is now open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. For information, call 229-7093.
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