Great architecture, family fun, historical discoveries and a day in the sun – it’s all free when Museums of the Arroyo (MOTA) Day celebrates 25 years on May 18, 2014.
5 p.m. with last entry at 4 p.m.
In addition to the annual free open house of museums, tours, music, storytelling, arts, crafts and entertainment, this year, MOTA Day museums will collectively participate in the “From Out of the Vault” exhibit which will showcase an item that has rarely been on display or ever seen by the public.
With so much to do and see – and only a few hours to do it – visitors are encouraged to best plan their visits. Special events this year include:
• The Autry’s Historic Southwest Museum, Mt. Washington Campus. Visitors can tour two current exhibitions: Four Centuries of Pueblo Pottery and Highlights From the Southwest Museum Collection. For MOTA Day, the Autry will feature a special display of recordings and archival documents from Charles Lummis’s wax cylinder collection and open a new installation created by fifth-year architecture students from Woodbury University. Led by architect Mark Stankard, the students have re-imagined a future for the historic Southwest Museum campus with models, diagrams, and elevations from their culminating thesis projects. The community garden overlooking the Arroyo Seco will also be open.
• The Gamble House. Visitors can tour the 1908 Arts and Crafts gem that is on the National Registry of Historic Places; children can do crafts in the backyard.
• Heritage Square Museum. Guests can observe a Spanish American War encampment, watch traditional woodcarving demonstrations, listen to storytellers as well as enjoy music and traditional dancing. Children can play with Victorian toys, do crafts, and learn about plants and flowers in the Ford House Kitchen garden.
• The Los Angeles Police Museum. Visitors can tour the facilities which feature private collections and historical memorabilia that date back to the late 1800s, including a vehicle shelter and the freshly restored 1955 paddy wagon. Kids can climb into a retired police helicopter. Visitors can experience a real jail cell and snap their own free police booking photos. Tour three other permanent exhibits about the Onion Field murder, the Patty Hearst kidnapping, and the 1997 North Hollywood Shootout.
• The Lummis Home and Garden. Self-guided tours of the home and garden will be available. Visitors are encouraged to bring and book and pick up a book for free at the new Lummis Book Exchange Program.
• The Pasadena Museum of History. Guests can take a mini-tour of the recently remodeled Fenyes Mansion as well as the Finnish Folk Museum which is housed in a replica of a 19th Century Finnish farmhouse. Visitors can also view the current exhibition Crown City Jubilee which showcases significant anniversaries of institutions, organization and businesses unique to Pasadena. Guests can purchase a meal from the Pie ‘n Burger truck that will be on site celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Free shuttles will connect all six museums.
For more information visit www.museumsofthearroyo.com.
Leave a Reply