New ''Please Touch'' Museum Will Open October 18th in Fairmount Park

   
by KYW's Karin Phillips

The new "Please Touch" Museum, at Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park, will open to the public on October 18th.  Museum operators announced the grand opening date on Wednesday while conducting a hard-hat tour of the restoration process for the press.

The Please Touch Museum is currently putting the finishing touches on a new glass-and-steel carousel house on the east side of Memorial Hall, the only addition to the hall for the museum.

Museum president and CEO Nancy Kolb (right) showed off the progress of the construction, which will eventually provide the museum with the larger facility that it needs:

"And we're going to give Philadelphia the best museum in country, I think, when we're finished with this."
 
The new museum building will feature six exhibit zones including "Flight Fantasy," where kids can row a flying machine.  And then there's the food, the Please Taste Café. Scott Swagger is manager:

"One of our main focuses is using local ingredients, things that are fresher, that are healthier." 

Other attractions for the museum will be the 1924 Dentzel carousel that originally operated at Woodside Park, with more than 52 hand-carved figures, and a 40-foot-tall replica of the Statue of Liberty's arm and torch created out of toys, games, and other found objects.
   
The Statue of Liberty replica artist is Leo Sewell of Philadelphia:

"This railing is going to made out of street signs. The final ball at the end of that is part of a chandelier that hung in this building."

Memorial Hall was built in 1876. The Please Touch Museum was founded in 1976.

(All photos by KYW's Karin Phillips)