Where Gumbo Was #440
The Science Museum of Virginia features four floors of interactive labs, awesome artifacts, hundreds of hands-on experiences and both permanent exhibits and touring exhibitions from around the world.
The museum is housed in the former Broad Street Train Station, built in 1917 for the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad (RF&P) on land that had previously been part of a confederate encampment during the Civil War. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
And it proved to be no mystery to this week’s solvers, ProfessorAbe and PortMoresby! Congratulations!
The Beaux Arts Neoclassical-style building was designed by architect John Russell Pope who also designed the Jefferson Memorial, National Archives, and the West Building of the National Gallery of Art, all in Washington, DC.
On the columned façade you can still make out the inscription of “Union Station of Richmond” though Richmond residents always called it the Broad Street Station. The station served rail passengers from 1919 until 1975, then became the home of the Science Museum in 1977.
In 1975, the State of Virginia decided to demolish the building and use the land for new office buildings, but as luck would have it, many concerned citizens fought to keep and repurpose this beautiful building. In front of the museum is a gray Kugel Globe with a penny fountain and some concrete benches for relaxation outside if the weather cooperates.
The building architecture, SR-71 Blackbird and the old railroad exhibits were my favorite items to view. As at so many museums now, there were no brochures to speak of, and at the front desk I was referred to their web site instead. The train platforms, steam engine and rail cars were in terrific condition. There were also many exhibits for children, both static and interactive.
Starting on the back side of the museum are the remnants of the original train station platforms and rails. The beautiful wooden covered platforms are supported by cast-iron Ionic columns. The 1919 Car O-N-E (pronounced Oh-N-Ee), a Pullman tricked out for the luxury needs of the railroad executives was supported by an RF&P Kitchen Car which also provided electricity and later air-conditioning for the entire train.
Broad Street became one of the South’s busiest stations. The station ran 24 hours a day. At its height, a train left the station approximately every 14 minutes, and April 22, 1943, was recorded as the busiest day of its 56-year run as a union terminal, and saw 33,324 people pass through its concourse. Also on display is the beautiful Chesapeake & Ohio 2-8-4 K-4 #2732 locomotive. Thirty-nine were produced and this is the only one still with its tender intact.
There are a few other historic train cars and interesting entry/exit ramps along with another Kugel Globe.
At the far end of the property sits an unusual exhibit called the “Aluminaut”. This 1964 vessel was the world’s first aluminum deep ocean research submersible built by the local Reynolds Aluminum Company that could dive to 15,000 feet with a payload of 6,000 pound. It was half the weight of steel submersibles in its day and could dive deeper than any other previous submersibles showing the strength of aluminum in benefiting undersea scientific research.
At the far end of the property sits an unusual exhibit called the “Aluminaut”. This 1964 vessel was the world’s first aluminum deep ocean research submersible built by the local Reynolds Aluminum Company that could dive to 15,000 feet with a payload of 6,000 pound. It was half the weight of steel submersibles in its day and could dive deeper than any other previous submersibles showing the strength of aluminum in benefiting undersea scientific research.
From the railyard you can see the famous Interbake Foods building a couple blocks from the museum. A Richmond landmark for over 80 years, the original cookie factory tower was built in 1927 as the new headquarters and main production plant for the Southern Biscuit Company (formally known as Southern Biscuit Works). In 1939, the company became the first officially licensed baker of the legendary Girl Scout cookies. Around this time, Southern Biscuit Company changed its branding to “Famous Foods of Virginia” (FFV for short), the name is still visible on the 1-1/2 story “Home of FFV Cookies and Crackers” sign on the roof. The building is officially listed in the National Register of Historic Places and has been converted into residences.
Back to the main entrance to the museum. Faced with Indiana limestone and dominated by a huge Tuscan colonnade and Roman dome—the first use of a dome for a major railroad station—the building was completed in 1919 for the RF&P and Atlantic Coast Line railroads. The station is noted architecturally for its Classical details, hundred-foot-high rotunda, and cast-iron and steel butterfly canopies that sheltered travelers from the weather. The colonnade entrance brings you into the main concourse with east-west and north-south axes and a large pendulum, featured at the top. Inscriptions above various doorways are reminiscent of the museum’s origins and old time train stations.
The “Speed” exhibits demonstrate the fastest and slowest things the universe has to offer. It includes 50 interactive stations including an actual famous SR-71 Blackbird. My neighbor was an Air Force flight engineer for this marvel back in the plane’s heyday. There are a number of exhibits of space travel and many interactive stations for kids and adults like playing a game of air hockey against a robot. Other wings of the museum include “The Hyperwall” to interact with local environmental, social, and climate science stories through data, “Green Science”, “Mental Health – Mind Science”, and “Boost!”.
There is also a series of reptile terrariums, and in 1982 the Museum introduced Crystal World, the largest and most comprehensive exhibit in the world on the subject of crystallography. Also introduced was the Solar Challenger, the world’s first successful solar airplane, which had just completed a world tour to celebrate its first solar-powered flight from Paris to London.
In 1983 Ethyl Corporation helped fund the addition of The Dome, an OMNIMAX theatre and planetarium. The Dome theater is the largest screen in Virginia and provides guests with the ultimate “you are there” experience. From June to October the Dome features “Dinosaurs Alive”. The Theater’s Evans & Sutherland Digistar planetarium projector was the world’s first computer/video planetarium projection system and the first that could take visitors on simulated trips through both time and space. Its film projection system was only one of a handful around the world capable of showing 70 mm OMNIMAX films. The theaters’ sound system featured over one hundred individual speakers and generated enough power to simulate earthquakes and rocket lift-offs. The seventy-six-foot domed screen of the theater itself was then the world’s largest.
Famous personalities to grace this museum when it was a train station was Winston Churchill and Elvis who performed at the local Mosque Theater. A photo of Elvis departing the station to catch a cab in 1956 when he was known primarily only in the South hangs in the museum hallway. This is where Elvis met a girl in Richmond and before his show where the famous “Kiss” photo was taken.
As a bit of historical significance …
Broad Street Station was built in the Jim Crow era, and as such, it was designed in a way to segregate black and white passengers. There were separate waiting rooms for both. White passengers used the main entrance facing Broad Street and waited for trains in both the central domed room where the pendulum is currently located and the west waiting room. Black passengers had to enter Broad Street Station using a door on the side of the building directly into the east waiting room. When the train cars for black passengers were called, black passengers would exit the east waiting room using a back door that led directly to the tracks. They did not have access to the whites-only central domed room.
If you’re visiting:
Tickets are Adults (13-59) $20.50, Seniors (60+) $18.50, Youth (6-12) $18.50, and Preschool (3-5) $15.00. If you are a US Military Veteran like me, you can call the museum in advance and get a code so that when you select a ticket in the purchase cart, you entrance fee is free when checking out online. The museum address for your GPS is 2500 West Broad Street, Richmond, VA 23220. Tickets for the Planetarium (called the “Dome”) are an additional $5.
There is free parking in an adjacent lot, and if you get there early enough like I happened to do, you can get a few spaces right outside the entrance with a couple in the shade. The museum works on timed tickets, so you have to pay online and select an entrance time that is available and that works for your estimated arrival. My daughter Jennifer and I arrived 30 minutes early, but they had a timed vacancy and they got us in with the earlier time.
