“The illusion of danger is essential for any kind of adventure.”- Bob Cassilly, creator of the City Museum.
I wasn’t going to climb out on the edge of the airplane wing and crawl through a tube made of fencing suspended 4 stories above the ground by a single cable and slide down, but I was at the City Museum and I couldn’t resist. The place is Awesome.
Not awesome in the commonly overused context, as in, “that song is awesome”. Yes, yes, whatever song that is may indeed be catchy, but it is not, in fact, awesome. I am not struck with wonder at that song. The City Museum, however, is actually Awesome. It is not a true museum, per se, but a gigantic climbing and adventure playground that takes up four floors, the roof, and the partial exterior of an old downtown St. Louis building. The City Museum’s website describes it as, “an eclectic mixture of children’s playground, funhouse, surrealistic pavilion, and architectural marvel made out of unique, found objects”. Part of the structure, what they call MonstroCity, extends outside the building and you can see it as you walk from the parking lot. To me, it looks like at a real-life Chutes and Ladders game made of recycled construction materials through a collaboration of Willy Wonka and M.C. Escher.
We started our adventure on the outdoor section, MonstroCity – four levels of climbing and sliding and being surprised at the slide you didn’t see when you climbed, subsequently sliding, and then finding a whole new place to climb that you didn’t see before. It was at one of these climbing obstacles – wide parallel bars that curved to the left with no obvious safety protocol – that two pairs of wide and excited eyes looked up at me.
Are we allowed to go up here?
Yeah, I think so.
Really?
Probably.
How do we get up there? Do we just climb it?
I don’t know – you’re not actually my kids, so yeah, sure.
And with that, two little girls, not my own, followed me; climbing up the parallel bars to the next level and then scurrying off in one of many possible directions.
I had lost track of my own kids some time before, but I was pretty sure they were okay – I would see flashes of them running along a rebar bridge or climbing up something impossible. The magical uniqueness of the place lends itself to good will to others; occasionally you will have to pause to unsnag someone else’s kids when you come across them and someone will unsnag or direct yours. A little boy was trying valiantly to unhook his shoelace from some part of the wire structure where he was stuck at an odd angle. I came upon him and freed his shoe. Later on, a helpful preteen (yes, I know what I just said) helped direct me out of some kind of spiraling wood structure. Another parent smiled at me in been-there-done-that sympathy when I hit my head on a low hanging fire truck part. Just be careful where you climb or you’ll end up on the wing of a plane four stories up. No preteen or sympathetic parent can help you down from there.
Wear sneakers and pants if possible, it will protect your knees as you crawl in and out of things. And boy did we – until that place shut down at midnight. By dark, we had moved to the interior of the building and we followed our girls through whatever tube or crevice our adult-sized bodies could fit through, finding ourselves in all sorts of wonderful, surprising places. Crawl through one hole, you end up in a maze of polished wood nest-like structures and woodland themed climbing spaces. Climb up one ladder into the sculpture of a whale and find yourself in a concrete-and-glass-bead set of tunnels that (I think) eventually lead to a steampunk version of a Hogwarts-esque spiral staircase that slid you back down 5 stories – or 10 if you started from the roof. I am never sure what lead to what in that place because it is designed that way. And they don’t have maps. I asked. And I am glad they didn’t – that way you just keep finding and discovering nooks and crevices and whole rooms. We would end up in places we had been before and finding something we didn’t see the first or second time through.
And then there is the roof. The roof is a separate 5 dollar fee per person, and is where you’ll find a school bus hanging off the ledge of the top of the building, a ferris wheel with a panoramic view of St. Louis, and a curved aluminum dome that you can climb up through a series of ladders along the sides and top and exit at the top of the dome to take a slide back down to the rooftop.
As it was, we were there for five hours, but we could have easily spent the entire day there. and my kids want to go back. We all want to go back! I can’t recommend the City Museum enough. For us, it’s worth another drive to St. Louis itself.
Fifty State Family 