7 of My Favorite East Coast Museums

When I travel, part of my itinerary often includes visiting a museum or two. Most of my traveling has been on the east coast in cities that are known for their museums, such as New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC. My hometown of Pittsburgh also contains numerous museums, from the traditional history museums to ones with very specific niches, like zombies and bicycles. After going through my old photos and videos of the museums I’ve visited over the years, I’ve come up with a list of seven museums that I recommend visiting on the east coast. Here they are below.

The Frick Pittsburgh

Located in the Point Breeze neighborhood of Pittsburgh, The Frick was home to Henry Clay Frick, an American industrialist who was born in Western Pennsylvania and who lived at the property with his family in the late 1800’s to early 1900s. The name of his 23-room mansion is called Clayton. When the family moved back to New York in 1905, they left a lot of their things with them which have been preserved. The grounds also include the family’s collection of old vehicles, art, and a greenhouse that still grows flowers and even bananas.

I’ve been to The Frick twice, both on free admission days. The first time, I was able to tour the downstairs of Clayton and learn a little about the family. During my second visit, the home was closed due to Covid. My favorite part, though, is the greenhouse. Though it’s cramped with flowers, I can see it being a great escape for a plant-loving matriarch or a kid who wanted to be alone to read or draw. Even looking at the dozens of antique cars and carriages up close was interesting, even for someone like me who is generally not a car person.

You can read more about The Frick here: https://www.thefrickpittsburgh.org/.

Museum of the Moving Image

A museum dedicated to all things movie and TV is right up my alley. So, the theme alone allows it to rank high on my list. But this museum located in Astoria, Queens also lives up to the hype.

After paying admission, you descend a bright white, space-aged staircase to the exhibits. There, you’ll find displays of movie props, costumes, historical filmmaking equipment, storyboards, and more.

I mostly went for the Jim Henson Exhibition which contained dozens of classic Muppet characters from various shows and movies. As a mega Muppet fan, I spent a lot of time studying every single piece on display.

Also on display, at the time of my visit in 2019, was an exhibition of 1980’s arcade games that visitors were encouraged to play for free. We went in the middle of a weekday when hardly anybody else was around aside from a group of a few dozen elementary school-aged kids who sped through each exhibit so fast that we lost track of them after five minutes.

I also remember an exhibit that taught you about music arrangement. You were provided with an action-packed clip from the movie Twister along with a selection of songs, and you could experiment inserting different music cues into the scene and compare and contrast them with the music that was ultimately used in the film. It shows how every choice that’s made in a film is crucial to its success or failure.

You can read more about the Museum of the Moving Image here: https://movingimage.us/

The 9/11 Memorial & Museum

The 9/11 Memorial & Museum is the saddest place I’ve ever been. Its history and atmosphere creates this somber yet fascinating tribute to possibly the largest historical event that I’ve ever lived through. That’s probably why it makes my list over other tribute museums.

The memorial is located in front of the museum, two pools where the original towers once stood that each contain a cascading waterfall. The names of the victims from all three attacks are carved into the top of each pool. White roses are inserted into the name carvings of the victims on their birthdays.

Once you pay your admission into the museum, you descend on an escalator underground to the exhibits. Being underground makes you feel like you’re in a tomb. The lighting is dim. Visitors are mostly quiet and speak in whispers. I saw a lot of people crying throughout the building.

I remember viewing damaged vehicles, twisted metal, and used emergency equipment. The larger items especially put the scale of the event into perspective. The foundations of both towers are still present in the ground as well. In the center of the building, there is a room full of photos of everyone who died in the attacks. With their late 90’s and very early 2000’s clothes and haircuts, they seem frozen in time.

The saddest part of my visit was a crumbling stone staircase on display. This staircase rescued dozens of people by providing a clear evacuation route from the burning towers, and it remained intact after the collapse. While there, a woman wearing a volunteer badge stood around telling stories about the stairs. She had lost a relative in the towers and was there to keep their memory alive. She too seemed frozen in time.

You can read more about the museum here: https://www.911memorial.org/.

The Heinz History Center

We Pittsburghers really do love naming places after our local boys who did well for themselves, and this is another example of one. Senator Henry John Heinz was born in Pittsburgh in 1938, and this museum is an educational institution that is devoted to the history of Western Pennsylvania. It’s an affiliate of the Smithsonian, and it sounds like it would be full of ketchup and pickle products. To be fair, there are plenty of those things inside.

However, its multiple floors house tons of memorabilia from local sports heroes and stadiums. You can sit in old trolley or a retired rollercoaster cart from a local amusement park. It also contains the old Land of Make Believe set from Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood, local World War II memorabilia, and tons of antique items that you would find in a typical history museum.

The local angle of the museum and its exhibits may be what ranks this museum so high on my list. But I think it has plenty to offer to the average non-local visitor as well. You can read more about The Heinz History Center here: https://www.heinzhistorycenter.org/

The Smithsonian

I like to say that of all of the history museums that I’ve visited, I like my local one best. But biased opinion aside, I do recommend going The Smithsonian in Washington, DC for the experience. For one, it’s free. Secondly, it’s a collection of museums, each with its own high points. And you can easily skip over certain sections and still not see everything.

Of course, I especially liked seeing the movie memorabilia. Dorothy’s ruby slippers and a replica of Julia Child’s kitchen stood out to me. I also liked seeing the various dresses worn by the first ladies and the toys that the presidents’ children played with while in living The White House.

I got a real shock when, in 2015, I saw a display of technology from the 1980s and 1990s that I used growing up. Once you’ve seen your own toys in a museum, you know you’re getting old.

You can read more about the Smithsonian here: https://www.si.edu/museums

The Jennie Wade House

Gettysburg feels like one big museum dedicated to a single Civil War battle. But this museum is dedicated to a single person, the only civilian who was killed in the battle when she was hit by a stray bullet while baking bread for the Union soldiers.

The museum offers guided tours of her house by knowledgeable tour guides dressed in era-appropriate costumes. They have stories in every room. From the preparations being made for Jennie’s very pregnant sister due to give birth at any time to the correspondence between Jennie and the boy she likely would have married, you can see that a real family lived there.

Here, I learned that to “hit the hay” entailed pulling off your bedpost and striking your mattress before getting into bed to get the bugs out of your hay-filled stuffing. I also viewed a piece of wood from a floorboard that contained an over 200-year-old stain of Jennie’s blood. The single girls and women in our group were encouraged to stick our finger through a hole in one of the bedroom doors. Legend had it that women who did typically ended up with a marriage proposal within a year. Needless to say, it didn’t work for me.

It’s strange which stories, sayings, and people are immortalized by time. Jennie Wade was just an average woman who literally ended up in the crossfire of history. But it’s nice to know that average people’s stories matter too.

You can read more about the Jennie Wade House here: https://www.gettysburgbattlefieldtours.com/jennie-wade-house/

The Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum

I grew up watching Ripley’s Believe it or Not on TV. This show subverted my expectations about normalcy and truth. My favorite story on the show was about Robert Wadlow, the tallest person in recorded history. The Ripley’s museum in Atlantic City is shaped like it has been split in half by the world itself. Inside, it’s a fun house of weird people, places, and things, as expected.

I didn’t expect this museum to be as large as it was. Every time I thought we were nearing the end, we’d come across another packed room. Some it was interactive. There were even a few jump scares, such as a trunk that shot a blast of air at you whenever you opened it.

Also displayed were art pieces made of food or recycled materials, a vampire hunting kit, a piece of coal from the Titanic, and a small section of the Berlin Wall. There were also mannequins which portrayed real people who lived and their amazing stories, such as the man who lived after being impaled through the chest by a metal fence post after a car accident. There was also a life size statue of Robert Wadlow built to scale so that you could measure yourself against the gentle giant.

While the thought of some of these stories can make you a little queasy or uncomfortable, there was nothing excessively gory or disturbing about the displays themselves. They encompass so many different aspects of our world throughout so many historical eras. And they help to show us that so many different types of lives have been lived and have resulted in so many unorthodox stories, creations, and outcomes.

You can read more about the Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum here: https://www.ripleys.com/atlanticcity/

What are your favorite east coast museums? Leave your answers in the comments below!

Also, check out my related post, Visiting Movie, TV, and Music Memorabilia here!

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