[HN Gopher] Niche Museums
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Niche Museums
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 56 points
Date : 2023-05-24 11:23 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.niche-museums.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.niche-museums.com)
| Neff wrote:
| For those in Chicago - I highly recommend the International
| Museum of Surgical Science: https://imss.org/
|
| Tons of old surgical implements, some death masks, and a lot of
| really interesting information.
| [deleted]
| 6177c40f wrote:
| I'm a big fan of niche museums. Here's a couple neat ones from my
| home state (MN) that aren't on this site:
|
| The Bakken Museum: https://thebakken.org/
|
| Pavek Museum: https://www.pavekmuseum.org/
| ewgoforth wrote:
| As far as in the USA, I like https://roadsideamerica.com
| thih9 wrote:
| Wonderful project.
|
| The database seems to be growing rather slowly, it has about 100
| entries globally; only five entries have been added in 2022.
|
| In sure HN visitors would like to add their own favorite niche
| museums. Is there an way to add an entry or submit a suggestion?
| simonw wrote:
| I originally thought I'd make it open to submissions, but I've
| since decided it's much more fun as a hobby project if it's
| just museums I've been to myself.
|
| Maybe I should add a "suggestions" feature though, since this
| comes up a lot!
| marpstar wrote:
| Yeah, nothing within 450 miles of where I'm at. Personal local
| favorite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_on_the_Rock
| 83 wrote:
| House on the Rock is cool, but it's a little bit of a stretch
| to call it a museum. The mustard museum on the other hand...
| simonw wrote:
| Part of the reason I called the site "Niche Museums" is
| that it gives me the freedom to have a very loose
| definition of what a museum is! I very much enjoy covering
| niche roadside attractions on there as well.
| croisillon wrote:
| one month ago (60* comments):
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35590745
|
| * it's funny, the algolia search function sometimes returns one
| less comment than the actual number
| jovial_cavalier wrote:
| Throwing this out there - The Strong National Museum of Play
| (https://www.museumofplay.org/), in Rochester, NY, is a museum
| entirely dedicated to toys. Most exhibits there are meant for
| children to interact with them.
|
| I live in the city, and grew up in the area. Many fond memories
| as a child at this museum. If you have a kid, and are in upstate
| New York or plan to be soon, I would highly recommend it.
| ztakeo wrote:
| Throwing a couple more recs in here: - American Sign Museum in
| Cincinnati (https://www.americansignmuseum.org/) - not sure what
| qualifies as a museum but the City Museum in St. Louis is
| incredible (https://www.citymuseum.org/)
|
| edit: throw the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda on here too
| tragomaskhalos wrote:
| Appreciate that this US-centric, but no such inventory can be
| complete without https://www.phallus.is/, The Icelandic
| Phallological Museum.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _this US-centric_
|
| 68 locations in the U.S., and 40 in other places.
| busterarm wrote:
| I was immediately disappointed to not find
| https://www.phallus.is/ represented.
| JoeDaDude wrote:
| I'd love to see a way to add some niche museums. Some
| suggestions:
|
| The Devil's Rope Museum, about barbed wire:
| https://barbwiremuseum.com/
|
| The Mutter Museum, a collection of anatomical specimens and
| antique medical equipment. https://muttermuseum.org/
|
| The Mario Lanza Institute, dedicated to the famed vocalist
| https://www.mariolanzainstitute.org/
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| For those in the Washington DC area, I really enjoyed the Cold
| War Museum. The docent working there (in 2015) was really
| knowledgeable about the material. I enjoyed hearing about how the
| local area was home to a listening station. Apparently there are
| large iron deposits in the ground that make for ideal radio
| reception. During World War 2, a radio operator noticed that he
| was receiving transmissions from taxi dispatchers in Berlin! The
| government ended up building a huge ring antenna that could
| listen to signals from all over the world.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vint_Hill_Farms_Station
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1993/10/04/cutt...
|
| The Cold War Museum
|
| +1 540-341-2008
|
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/EkQfn4WvtbgujtNk9?g_st=ic
| contingencies wrote:
| The _Museum of World Religions_ in Taipei, Taiwan is the most
| uniquely conceived museum I 've ever had the pleasure of
| exploring. The brainchild of a Taiwanese Buddhist monk who died
| before it was completed, it aims to explore humanity's shared
| experience from birth through death, aspects of humanity such as
| being humbled by the vastness of nature, space and time, and the
| journey of being dependent, independent, and dependent again as
| we age. It also celebrates, in a non-denominational way, the
| religious art and architecture of various religious and
| philosophical traditions around the world. The architecture and
| curation are first rate: truly a great experience. Go alone.
| https://www.mwr.org.tw/
| thehoff wrote:
| At Michigan State University they have a Pezz Dispenser and a
| Moist Towlette museum. Found in the Obervatory.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Missing:
|
| The National Museum of Funeral History
|
| https://www.nmfh.org/
|
| Surprisingly, zero goth content. Much about presidential
| funerals, ancient Egypt, Popes, and New Orleans jazz funerals.
| ggeorgovassilis wrote:
| On the topic, if you ever find yourself ever bored in Zagreb,
| check out the optical illusions and broken relationships museums.
| drno123 wrote:
| Came here to post this :)
| surprisetalk wrote:
| Very cool! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tru4L2uvkoA
| foobarian wrote:
| Was just in the illusions museum in NYC that looks exactly the
| same, and lo and behold it's a franchiser -
| https://www.museumofillusions.com/. Wonder if Croatia has the
| most Museums of Illusion per capita in the world :-)
| TRiG_Ireland wrote:
| My favourite is probably the Revenue museum:
| https://www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/information-about-revenu...
|
| > The Revenue Museum provides a unique window on the many and
| varied activities of Revenue, from tax collection to customs
| controls over several centuries.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Big one for tax and customs in Rotterdam also,
| https://www.bdmuseum.nl/en/
| contingencies wrote:
| If you're in Rotterdam, the Dutch national _Fotomuseum_ is
| truly excellent, the best photography-as-art museum in Europe
| I 've seen (Prague's _National Technical Museum_
| https://www.ntm.cz/ is superior on the equipment side). Also
| the _Wereldmuseum_ is excellent, showing a tiny portion of
| the huge number of state-owned artifacts of Dutch empire from
| far and wide. Many others are stored in an anonymous archive
| building to the east of town I have had cause to visit, and
| is truly impressive. Also, the nearby town of Dordrecht has a
| good local museum and historic wealth driven by tax and
| customs at a river confluence.
| https://www.nederlandsfotomuseum.nl/
| https://www.wereldmuseum.nl/ The world is truly full of
| treasures!
| tanseydavid wrote:
| I have been in the Bay Area for 36 years and have never heard
| mention of the "Golden State Model Railroad Museum."
|
| Thanks for sharing this.
| whartung wrote:
| We have a large one down in San Diego at Balboa Park. Similar
| to this one, but it's 27,000 sq ft, several layouts.
|
| San Diego Model Railroad Museum
|
| https://www.sdmrm.org
|
| As an aside, the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento
| is a real treasure. And, going with the "railroad", "silicon
| valley", and "niche museums" themes here, the original Golden
| Spike from the Transcontinental Railroad ceremony can be seen
| at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| I saw it as a kid. I thought it was glorious.
|
| There are some interesting niche historical museums and sites
| around Sacramento.
|
| If it counts as a museum, the trains of the first
| transcontinental railroad at Promontory UT are interesting.
|
| Kids about 7-14 like the Exploratorium. It used to be over by
| the Palace of Fine Arts.
|
| Most boys roughly 5-15 get a kick out of The Hiller.
|
| In the world, one of the most interesting is the Torture
| Museum.
|
| In terms of collection, the Cantor at Stanford has quite the
| concentration of interesting historical and famous objects.
| netrus wrote:
| If you ever get to Hamburg, Germany, pay a visit to the
| remarkable Miniatur Wunderland [0].
|
| ... and if you really enjoy niche museums, don't forget the
| German Museum of Additives [1]!
|
| [0] https://www.miniatur-wunderland.de/
|
| [1] https://www.zusatzstoffmuseum.de/
| mjmasn wrote:
| The Baked Bean Museum of Excellence was a very niche one near me
| in South Wales. Think it has closed its doors now though.
|
| https://captainbeany.com/baked-bean-museum-of-excellence/
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| The Museum of Holography in Chicago was really, really cool.
| Hopefully someday it can be on this list.
|
| I wish it was still open. I was there last in the early 2000's.
| The story about the museum's closing is pretty sad[1], but the
| collection was saved.
|
| It looks like there were some public exhibitions in the last few
| years but there's no permanent space right now. There's a
| Facebook page[2] from a group trying to resurrect the museum.
|
| [0] https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/museum-holography-mro
|
| [1] https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150610/west-loop/museum-
| of...
|
| [2] https://www.facebook.com/holomuseum/
| MWil wrote:
| While the Antikythera mechanism (earliest known computer) is
| housed at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, there is
| a smaller museum in Athens called the Museum of Ancient Greek
| Technology, with replicas of the mechanism as well as various
| greek inventions over the millenia that I knew little to nothing
| about prior. Lots of times I thought "they never taught me that
| in any class..."
|
| Highly recommend you add a visit during the busy periods of the
| more well known tourist attractions in Athens. The personal guide
| was very engaging, very informative, and I think it was like 5
| bucks per person.
|
| http://kotsanas.com/gb/index.php
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
| dailyplanet wrote:
| Would the Super Museum count as niche?
|
| Superman Museum in Metropolis, Illinois: https://supermuseum.com/
| williamjackson wrote:
| This is a (fantastic!) project by Simon Willison, co-creator of
| the Django framework and creator of Datasette.
|
| If you are wondering why the collection is so small, it would
| appear from the commit history that Simon only adds museums that
| he has visited himself.
|
| https://github.com/simonw/museums/commits/main
| mfragin wrote:
| Oh, I hope he comes to Pueblo, CO sometime and checks out the
| niche museum I volunteer at. We have basically 3 people running
| it, including Nell Mitchell, who made it all possible:
| https://coloradostatehospitalmuseum.org/
|
| It's a museum that documents the history of the Colorado State
| Hospital (Colorado Insane Asylum, when it opened in 1879). I
| bought a house near it and just walked in one day. Now I'm
| there two days a week and spend a lot of time doing research
| for people trying to find out about their relatives that may
| have been patients.
| simonw wrote:
| That looks fantastic! I've added it to my Google Map of
| museums to visit (1200 and counting).
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| USS Intrepid in NYC is a museum dedicated to to the aircraft
| carrier's time in commission and is definitely worth a visit. I
| suspect that it's probably a lot more locked down now than it was
| 20 years ago when you could climb all over the aircraft.
| great_wubwub wrote:
| It would be nice to have a way to submit museums. I'm thinking of
| https://www.umbrellacovermuseum.org/
| vharuck wrote:
| It might be possible to submit one through the website's
| GitHub: https://github.com/simonw/museums
|
| No idea how receive the author is to pull requests, though.
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