Tag Archives: Strong Museum; Strong Museum of Play; Strong National Museum of Play; National Toy Hall of Fame; Rochester

“The Best Of”… In My Humble Opinion

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Our region is packed with wonderful places to enjoy, but where are the BEST of each category? Here’s a subjective, incomplete, and individualistic – but heartfelt! – list of recommendations.

Best Open-Air Museum: Genesee Country Village, in Mumford. 600 acres to stroll, with 68 period houses collected from the region and re-erected as a developing 19th-century village. It includes an octagon house from Friendship; a mansion from Campbell; a country store from Altay; a church from Brooks Grove; a one-room school from Rush; and Nathaniel Rochester’s plank house, from when he was still living in Dansville. (But don’t overlook the Farmer’s Museum, in Cooperstown.)

Best Kids’ Museum: The Strong National Museum of Play, in Rochester. Toys, games, playthings, and recreational books – you MUST like at least one of those! (I like ’em all!) I’m not sure how many acres there are under roof, but it’s all dedicated to recreation and play – last time I was there, there was even a Penn Yan Boats fishing boat on exhibit. Strong also has the National Toy Hall of Fame (find your favorites, or make a nomination!), a large dollhouse collection, and a wonderful indoor butterfly garden. Even with all those playthings (many of the hands-on) just a few steps away, what is better than a butterfly?

Best Aviation Museum: The Glenn Curtiss Museum, in Hammondsport. Follow the life of America’s first aviation titan, who made multiple millions within seven years after he and his friends built their first airplane. (The first airplane they ever BUILT, was also the first airplane they ever SAW.) And explore the life of the little home town that rode the roller-coaster with him. Years ago, I was the director here. I think you’d like it.

Best Local History Museum: The Buffalo History Museum, in Buffalo. The museum is historic all by itself, for it’s the only building preserved from the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, or world’s fair. (President McKinley was fatally shot just a few blocks away, and the museum owns the murder weapon.) The museum is fun, but it also doesn’t pull any punches on facing the community’s history of prejudice. One fun little curio – former president Millard Fillmore was one of the founding members of the Buffalo Historical Society, which operates the museum.

Best Place to Lose Yourself in Flowers: Cornell Botanical gardens, in Ithaca. Tiptoe through setpiece flower beds, or ramble among broadcast dame’s rocket.

Most Beautiful Place to Hike: The Finger Lakes Trail section between Steuben County Route 13 (Mitchellsville Road) and State Route 54, outside Hammondsport. Sometimes deer and wild turkey… hepatica and may apple in season… always the woodland, the nearby gorge and stream, the Keuka Inlet, and the lovely vineyard in Pleasant Valley.

Best Gorge: Watkins Glen, in… Watkins Glen! Letchworth and Stony Brook rightfully have their boosters, but you can walk the gorge at Watkins and get wet along the way. The gorge hoots and hollers and sprays, but you meet it, and enjoy it, on a human level.

Best Waterfall, NOT Counting Niagara, Which is in a Class by Itself: Taughannock Falls, near Cayuga Lake, outside Ithaca. A half-mile walk-in, and a single drop longer than Niagara’s, although noplace near as wide. Close second goes to Shequaga Falls, right at the end of West Main Street in Montour Falls.

Best Scenic Overlook: Mossy Bank Park above Bath, and Harris Hill Park near Elmira. Local folks have been enjoying Mossy Bank for 200 years, and I imagine the same is true for Harris Hill. Sailplanes take off and land right near the Harris Hill overlook. This is also the spot from which young Tommy Hilfiger saw the wall of water thundering down the Chemung in 1972, then raced it back to his first shop to save the stock by rushing it to an upper level. Mossy Bank used to be part of the Davenport estate, and girls from the Davenport orphanage loved to hike up there for picnics. You sometimes see eagles nowadays. (More “Bests” to come, from time to time!)

Old-Time Diners (and Where to Find Some) — Part 2!

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Over the past three weeks we’ve looked at some quirky, even goofy, forms of American architecture, and where we can drive to see some locally – octagon houses (2/8), Quonset huts and geodesic domes (2/15), and manufactured diners (2/22). This week, we find a few more diners!

As we mentioned last week, anyplace can call itself a diner. But we’re looking here specifically at long, low historic diners, built in a factory and delivered on wheels, and still showing enough of their original construction for us to spot them.

In Rochester you can double-dip for diners, starting with the Skyliner, which is actually an attraction AND an eating place at the Strong National Museum of Play. And why not? If a diner isn’t exactly play, it certainly falls under the category of fun! This is perhaps the largest historic “artifact” in the museum collection, and it was built in 1956 by Fodero, which emphasized modernistic chrome and stainless steel. By the way, it used to be that you could walk in, eat at the diner, and walk out. Nowadays you need to pay museum admission to get a seat.

A few miles away is the Highland Park Diner (960 South Clinton), still on its original 1948 spot but formerly called Dauphin’s Superior Diner. It’s the only survivor of a handful of diners made by the Orleans Company of Albion. Given its location, Highland Park Diner is proud of serving customers “from college students to mature couples.”

Hunter (or Hunter’s) Dinerant in Auburn was closed for a few months last year, but as far as I can tell it’s open again. It’s a 1951 chrome-and-steel diner and it was installed at 18 Genesee Street that same year, on a platform built out over the Owasco River. In addition to traditional diner fare, they’ve recently added the French Canadian poutine (french fries, gravy, and cheese curds).

Back in 1989 Connie Cartolozzo, a chef at Hobart, was having a coffee at Chick’s Diner in Waterloo and decided to make an offer for the place. Before long the 1960s diner hands and became Connie’s Diner. Patrons speak highly of the milkshakes!

Smokin’ Little Diner in DePew is a 1950s chrome-and-steel model, proud of its barbecue sauce. It’s not very big, but it’s DARNED popular.

We mentioned last week that this series is an architecture feature, so we can’t really make recommendations, let alone guarantees, about the food or menus at any given place. Also, of course, the pandemic has wreaked havoc with hours, menus, seating, and ambience. Still, if you’re touring around you might think about getting something “to go,” even if it’s only a cup of coffee (or a milkshake)… or, you could buy a bottle of barbecue sauce. The owners and workers will surely appreciate it.


As we wrap up our diner dive, let’s bare our heads for several local eateries that have passed from the scene. Avoca Diner, as we mentioned last week, fulfilled its destiny by being put on wheels and hauled away to Washington, D.C. The Post Diner in Painted Post was a diner of the spaceship, chrome-and-steel persuasion, plus a substantial expansion. It was ENTIRELY under water in the 1972 flood, and I imagine that that’s why we have it no more.

Randy’s Stanton Diner, on Bridge Street in Corning’s Northside, was in the “railway car” style. It too would have been flooded in 1972, which may be why it’s gone. In either case, the Post and the Stanton are each fondly remembered. Take a drive. Make some of your own memories.

Baby Boom Toys (Part Two!)

A few weeks ago, in honor of the season, we looked at inductees to the National Toy Hall of Fame, which is at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester. (Worth a visit – you should go!) We focused ourselves on Baby Boom toys, released no earlier than 1946.

But I’ll make an exception for the SLINKY, introduced for Christmas in 1945. The manufacturers brought their first batch of 400 to demonstrate at Gimbels in Philadelphia, and sold out the stock in minutes.

I well remember being flabbergasted by the thing in the mid-fifties, as it “walked” its way down the stairs. Clearly it wasn’t magic, but it darned well looked like it. The down side was that Slinkies easily got twisted or tangled. (Still do, I suppose.) But the lifelike movement was compelling.

I was about 13 when G. I. JOE burst onto in the scene, so I didn’t get caught up in the enthusiasm. My younger cousin did, though. And so did millions of others.

G. I. Joe was sort of a male counterpart to Barbie, with all the changes of costume and paraphernalia. He was billed as an a-c-t-i-o-n f-i-g-u-r-e, and not as a (heavens!) d*o*l*l, so boys could enjoy him with impunity. And they did! He became the progenitor of acres of action figures, from Star Trek to Star Wars to He-Man and She-Ra, and he himself is still going strong.

Not without a few hiccups along the way, especially as Vietnam provoked Americans to re-evaluate their love affair with war. He disappeared for five years or so beginning in 1978, and he shrank in size from 11 ½ inches to eight inches to 3 ¾ inches. He also diversified, becoming an astronaut, an explorer… an adventurer. Even today, he’s always ready for the next mission or the next challenge, and the next kid with dreams.

I also had only a nodding acquaintance with the EASY-BAKE OVEN, originally available in such modern designer colors as turquoise and pale yellow. It’s very fondly remembered and still sells up a storm. The elementary-school girls in Jimmy Gownley’s Amelia Rules graphic novel series speak of it with awe as the “holy grail” of Christmas gifts. Hats off to the designers who discerned the brilliant and elegant simplicity of a pair of hundred-watt light bulbs making a safe yet functional oven for kids.

Oh, yes, the SKATEBOARD, or, in the early parlance of the day, the “sidewalk surfer.” Not being very good (even today) at fine-motor coordination, I couldn’t use the thing for beans. But they sure were popular! And still are today! And good for them (assuming you take safety precautions), for giving the kids fresh air and exercise.

Kudos also to the BIG WHEEL, first introduced by Marx. By the time it came out I was far too hulking to use it, but it transformed the venerable tricycle into a far safer (but even faster!) vehicle, mainly by lowering the rider, lowering the center of gravity, and replacing sharp-edged, unyielding metal with molded plastic. More fun, more safe. Love ’em both.

Even adding this second blog doesn’t exhaust the Baby Boom contributions to the National Toy Hall of Fame! We’ll add some more another time.

Baby Boom Toys (Part One!)

One of our neatest amenities here in western New York is the Strong National Museum of Play, in Rochester. Our younger son went three time last spring, and he’s almost 40! We accompanied him on one of those trips, and we’re way MORE than 40!

And one feature of the museum is the National Toy Hall of Fame. From the cardboard box to the yo-yo to Nintendo and Star Wars… and even the humble, simple stick… the Hall of Fame applauds and commemorates the playthings of many lifetimes.

The Baby Boom generation is perhaps the FIRST generation of kids to which our society paid a lot of systematic attention, AS KIDS. So as a certified card-carrying Boomer I thought we’d take a spin down memory lane to see the toys we grew up with… introduced no earlier than 1946. Do you recall…

PLAY-DOH. It was actually invented as a wallpaper cleaner in the 1930s, and remarketed to kids twenty years later. They sold two billion cans in fifty years.

The FRISBEE and the HULA HOOP. These gargantuan plastic fads were both marketed by Wham-O in southern California. I suppose that the name of the hula hoop was inspired by the approaching statehood of Hawaii. Using the hula hoop seems like a frantic, even frenetic activity, while the slow glide of the Frisbee cultivates serenity.

After some hesitation, Ohio Art paid what for them was a record price for a European creation that they euphoniously named ETCH A SKETCH. They started production on July 12 in 1960, and orders ran so high that they didn’t stop until noon on Christmas Eve. Like Pay-Doh, Etch A Sketch embodied creative, imaginative play. You could create almost anything you liked, and imagination made it twenty times more so.

BARBIE was controversial from the start, and indeed was somewhat based on a highly sexualized German doll. But that was opportunistic – when she found “Bild Lilli” on a European trip, Ruth Handler was already planning an adult plaything with a wide array of fashions – a 3-D paper doll.

Soooo… Barbie presented an unrealistic, and even ridiculous, body form. She also provided opportunity for imaginative play and unbounded aspiration, especially when Mattel presented her in an endless array of occupations and avocations both traditional and ground-breaking, AND in time adding non-white characters (including non-white Barbies) to the line.

MR. POTATO HEAD was originally (1949) a set of accessories and facial features to pin onto a potato. In 1952 Hasbro started providing a styrofoam head, and in 1964 moved to plastic. Coming from Rhode Island (Hasbro’s home) as I do, I note that Mr. Potato Head was once the official state tourism spokesman. I’m not sure that having a spokesman named Potato Head is the best marketing move, but at least he provided immediate recognition.

TONKA reportedly means “big” in Dakota, and it fits the memorable line of toy trucks! I imagine that most Boomers enjoyed Tonka Trucks immensely someplace along their way. I know I did.

Silicone-based SILLY PUTTY was developed as a potential rubber substitute doring World War II, and soon got used for goofing around at parties. It was first marketed on a small scale to adults as a party toy in 1949, almost died out due to rationing in the Korean War, and therafter was sold with ads aimed at kids. THAT turned out to be a big success.

We’ll look at more in a future blog, but for now… how many do you remember? How many did you have? Which ones would you love to have right now?

Pinball Fun (and More) at the Strong National Museum of Play

If you’re of (ahem) a certain age, you may occasionally find yourself brooding on the fact that it’s very hard to get in a pinball game nowadays.

*Well, fret no more. You can get in all the games you like… in fact, more than you can handle… at the Strong Museum in Rochester.

*The Strong, which bills itself as the National Museum of Play, has set up a couple of dozen operating pinball machines, which you can tackle at a quarter apiece. Pull back the spring-loaded starter, flap those flippers, bounce the steel ball off the uprights and over the trip levers to the satisfying bing-bing-ching and bung-kachung, while lights flash and strobe, and you can drop all the way back to pre-computer days, when the world and you were young, and the pinball machine brightened the corner of the neighborhood newsstand.

*I played half a dozen machines from different periods, usually getting three balls for my quarter (plus any more I earned during play). Unsurprisingly, I found that some tilt easier than others! One had a set of suspiciously-short flippers. This left the open gate between them annoyingly wide, but it also meant that you didn’t get enough leverage for a good snap on those occasions when you COULD flip the ball.

*Pinball’s natural successor (and replacement) was the arcade video game, and there were at least as many of those in operation, even starting with the ur-game of Pong. Early Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man are still in action at Strong, though I was sorry not to find the original Space Invaders.

*Strong hosts the Video Game Hall of Fame, and a Hall of Fame for video game designers. Pinball was a 2018 inductee for the main Toy Hall of Fame, along with Uno and Magic 8-Ball. I like to prowl through the Hall of Fame area and meet old friends, from the stick and the cardboard box, through Barbie and Mr. Potato Head, on up to modern high-tech playthings.

*Strong Museum is always changing, and always bringing forth new exhibits. But old favorites also continue to pack in crowds – the life-size walk-in Sesame Street set, the Berenstain Bears space, the gallery of superheoes, the working carousel, and the indoor Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden are all as busy as ever.

*It’s not just for kids any more, as the old commercial said. We’re in our late 60s, and we’ve seen at LOT of changes in the museum over the years, and we love the place. Our younger son is 37, and he’s been three times in the past month – once with kids, once with a peer, and once with us.

*You can still eat in Bill Gray’s Restaurant at the Skyline Diner, which is the largest artifact in the collection, but there’s also a food court space nowadays. The butterfly garden has an additional fee, over and above museum admission.

*Some other special features include: a “Cartop” rowboat made locally, by Penn Yan Boats; an original circular Monopoly board, with circular card table; and a number of huge 19th-century dollhouses (familiar to those who know the museum from of old).

*A decade-by-decade exhibition of toys, games, and playthings ropes in Shirley Temple, Davy Crockett, Charlie McCarthy, and G. I. Joe; Scrabble; Twister; the Kenner View-Master; space toys; war toys; homemaker toys… the list is endless. As long as kids keep playing, Strong Museum will keep on growing.

Play Time — at the Strong Museum

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Last week in this space we shared a visit to the Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden in Rochester. But that wonderful space is only one small spot in the Strong National Museum of Play.
Some of us can remember the “old” Strong Museum, showcasing the collections of Margaret Woodbury Strong. Not as aggressive as a hoarder, but not as discriminating as a collector, we might call Mrs. Strong a gatherer, or an accumulator. Chests of buttons… apparently not selected by any criteria beyond availability… formed part of the collection. Another was an impressive array of dollhouses, many from the 19th century.
I’d imagine that these dollhouses underlay an extremely fruitful shift of mission – to emphasize and build on the playthings in Mrs. Strong’s collection, and become the Strong Museum of Play.
Mission accomplished. From the museum’s largest artifact (a working 1918 Herschell carousel, built in North Tonawanda) down to the tiniest Star Wars figurine, the Strong celebrates play throughout the ages of time and the stages of childhood.
Some of it is under glass, such as the Star Wars figurines. But you can ride the carousel. You can have lunch in the Skyliner, an original manufactured diner moved into the museum. Kids can “shop” at a miniature Wegman’s supermarket.
You can walk right into Sesame Street. This full-sized reproduction of the TV series set is wildly popular, and at certain spots you can even see yourself, in Sesame Street, on the TV monitor.
Special exhibits come and go. On the Fourth of July Joyce and I turned time backward in its flight at a huge (and busy!) exhibit of pinball machines and beach arcade games. Except for salt air and seagulls, we might have been back in southern New England at Rocky Point or Misquamicut or Ocean Beach. There was even a large sandbox for the kids.
As a lifelong comic-book fan I enjoyed the gallery on American Comic Book Heroes. As a children’s librarian, Joyce explored the Berenstain Bears gallery. While Strong Museum includes many commercial games and playthings, it also emphasizes imaginative play and recreational reading. The Rochester Public Library system even has a mini-branch welcoming children at the Strong.
Strong is home to the National Toy Hall of Fame, which enjoys a large space on the second level. Here you can refresh your acquaintance with proprietary products such as Barbie, G.I. Joe, Monopoly, and the Hula Hoop – but also with jacks, the rubber ball, the stick, and even the cardboard box. While the first level is mostly hands-on, in the second level are also setpiece exhibits reminiscent of the old museum, including glass cases filled with dollhouses, and a space tracking American playthings decade by decade. Find YOUR childhood decade, and see what you remember!
One way to illustrate the impact of Strong Museum is to say that a decade or so back Joyce and I were heading to the Strong to do a story for Touring New York. When our sons heard we were going, they both begged to come. But we told the younger one he had to get to his classes at C.C.C., and the older one that he had to go to work. Even so, we’ve taken them both since.

The amazing Spider-Me... at play in the Strong Museum.

The amazing Spider-Me… at play in the Strong Museum.