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| Established | 1979 |
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| Location | 480 N. Arroyo Blvd. Pasadena, California 91103 |
| Coordinates | 34°09′19″N118°09′50″W / 34.15528°N 118.16389°W |
| Type | Nonprofit |
| Visitors | 378,000 |
| Director | Mike Bryant, Board President Lisa Clements, Chief Executive Officer |
| Website | www.kidspacemuseum.org |
Kidspace Children's Museum is a children's museum in Pasadena, California. [1] It is located next to the Rose Bowl, in the former Fannie E. Morrison Horticultural Center. [2]
Since the December 2004 opening of its new facility in Brookside Park, Pasadena, Kidspace Children's Museum has provided local community children with a space for creative and interactive learning.
1979: Kidspace Children's Museum launched at the California Institute of Technology. A community project of the Junior League of Pasadena, Kidspace addressed an educational need in the San Gabriel Valley: increased access to the arts, humanities and sciences for children. Volunteers created and presented a prototype interactive exhibit, "Making Senses," designed to stimulate the interest of children by featuring robotics and neon light displays. More than 10,000 young visitors, their parents and teachers participated in the first exhibition during its six-week run.
1980: The museum opened its doors in the Rosemont Pavilion on Arroyo Seco parkland with "hands-on" exhibits. Among other organizations, exhibit design and construction were the product of community collaborations with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Art Center College of Design and UNOCAL. Volunteers helping create the new museum included a Pasadena Unified School District superintendent, a Jet Propulsion Laboratory director and an originating director of the Princeton Junior Museum, all of whom provided expertise as members of the museum's first Board of Advisors.
1981: Kidspace leased a larger and more accessible site from Pasadena Unified School District in the heart of Pasadena. Later that year, Kidspace Children's Museum was incorporated as a private, nonprofit children's museum.
1982-1990: Kidspace introduced participatory exhibits and educational programs that engaged and educated children in the arts, humanities and sciences. Quarterly themes, such as Homes and Habitats, Seasons and Celebrations and Children of the World at Play, provided focus during public programming and school tours.
1991-1995: A new school programs coordinator met the needs of teachers to coordinate curriculum with visits to the museum. Campers enrolled in summer workshops and "Toddlers on the Move" provided parenting classes and developmental play. With the support of community volunteers and the Circle of Friends support group, the staff produced annual events, including the Rosebud Parade (a child-sized Rose Parade), the "creatively creepy" Haunted House, Critter Expo and the Eco-Arts Festival.
1996: The Kidspace Board of Directors adopted a plan to grow the museum from a small local attraction to a major Southern California cultural and educational destination.
2002: Kidspace closed its former site at McKinley School in Pasadena and began renovation of the historic Fannie Morrison Horticultural Center buildings at Brookside Park in the Arroyo Seco.
2005: The new Kidspace features 2.2 acres (8,900 m2) of gardens.
2010: Kidspace embarked to expand its facilities by creating an outdoor physics-related area on the east side of the property. This area, known as Robert & Mary Galvin Physics Forest, encompassed almost an acre with 13 exhibits, all under a canopy of trees.
2012: Robert & Mary Galvin Physics Forest officially opened to the general public, July 2012. [3] Galvin Physics Forest marked the first major addition to Kidspace since opening in Brookside Park in 2004. [4] With support from the Honorary Committee, the stage was set for Kidspace to reach its potential as a leader in children's museums and informal education.
2013: The Imagination Workshop opened to the public in November 2013. The Imagination Workshop was built inside Roberts Pavilion in W.M. Keck Foundation Gallery. Funding for this project, came from The Campaign for the Future of Kidspace and was planned along with several other exhibit and program concepts as a part of an exhibit master plan, which detailed the next several projects to open at Kidspace over the next several years.
2014: S. Mark Taper Early Childhood Learning Center opened to the public, May 2014. The next project established by the exhibit master plan and funded by The Campaign for the Future of Kidspace.
2015 - 2016: Pepper Tree Music Jam opened to the public in November 2015, as the first exhibit to be featured in the upcoming Arroyo Adventure. Arroyo Adventure opened to the public in April 2016. It marked the next biggest enhancement to Kidspace since the addition of Galvin Physics Forest in 2012. The exhibit brought 8 brand-new experiences that encourage children to connect with nature, engage in adventures, and uncover possibilities between water and rocks, mud and sticks, and trees and native plants. In November 2016, Kidspace renovated Roberts Pavilion to include a dramatic and visual arts area called Storyteller Studio with four new exhibits that would give children the opportunity to express themselves through puppets, theatrical play, story books, and fine arts.
2017 - 2019: The Association of Children's Museum chose Kidspace as their host location for their InterActivity Conference for museum professionals in May 2017. The Kidspace On The Road program was expanded its outreach program offerings with the partnership with AEG's Goldenvoice to incorporate a family-friendly experience for the newly established Arroyo Seco Weekend music festival at the Rose Bowl. [5] The Campaign for the Future of Kidspace met its fundraising goal of $13 million. Splash Dance Fountains would be the final exhibit enhancement project for the campaign and re-opened in 2018. Bean Sprouts Café opened. [6]
2020: Kidspace appoints a new chief executive officer, Lisa Clements. [7]
Kidspace has received funding from individuals including Jud and Marilyn Roberts, the Boone Family, Mark Taper, and others. Community partnerships have been formed with the City of Pasadena, the Junior League of Pasadena, Nestle Corporation, and others.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center in the City of Pasadena, California, United States. Founded in 1936 by Caltech researchers, the laboratory is now owned and sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and administrated and managed by the California Institute of Technology.
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, 11 miles (18 km) northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district.
South Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 25,619, up from 24,292 in the 2000 census. It is located in West San Gabriel Valley. It is 3.42 square miles (8.9 km2) in area and lies between the much larger city of Pasadena, of which it was once a part, and the metropolis of Los Angeles. South Pasadena is the oldest self-builder of floats in the historic Tournament of Roses Parade.
ArtCenter College of Design is a private art university in Pasadena, California.
The Arroyo Seco Parkway, also known as the Pasadena Freeway, is one of the oldest freeways built in the United States. It connects Los Angeles with Pasadena alongside the Arroyo Seco seasonal river. It is notable not only for being an early freeway, mostly opened in 1940, but for representing the transitional phase between early parkways and modern freeways. It conformed to modern standards when it was built, but is now regarded as a narrow, outdated roadway. A 1953 extension brought the south end to the Four Level Interchange in downtown Los Angeles and a connection with the rest of the freeway system.
Route 110, consisting of State Route 110 (SR 110) and Interstate 110 (I-110), is a state and auxiliary Interstate Highway in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of the US state of California. The entire route connects San Pedro and the Port of Los Angeles with Downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena. The southern segment from San Pedro to I-10 in downtown Los Angeles is signed as I-110, while the northern segment to Pasadena is signed as SR 110. The entire length of I-110, as well as SR 110 south of the Four Level Interchange with US Route 101 (US 101), is the Harbor Freeway, and SR 110 north from US 101 to Pasadena is the historic Arroyo Seco Parkway, the first freeway in the western United States.
Highland Park is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, located in the city's Northeast region. It was one of the first subdivisions of Los Angeles and is inhabited by a variety of ethnic and socioeconomic groups.
The Arroyo Seco, meaning "dry stream" in Spanish, is a 24.9-mile-long (40.1 km) seasonal river, canyon, watershed, and cultural area in Los Angeles County, California. The area was explored by Gaspar de Portolà who named the stream Arroyo Seco as this canyon had the least water of any he had seen. During this exploration he met the Chief Hahamog-na (Hahamonga) of the Tongva Indians.
Ernest Allan Batchelder was an American artist and educator who made Southern California his home in the early 20th century. He created art tiles and was a leader in the American Arts and Crafts Movement.
The Arroyo Seco Bicycle Path is an approximately 2-mile (3.2 km) long Class I bicycle path along the Arroyo Seco river channel and canyon in the Northeast Los Angeles region of Los Angeles County, California. It parallels the Arroyo Seco Parkway, which is also a part of the canyon.
Heritage Square station is an at-grade light rail station on the A Line of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. It is located at the intersection of French Avenue and Pasadena Avenue in the western Montecito Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Southwest Museum station is an at-grade light rail station on the A Line of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. It is located near the intersection of Marmion Way at Museum Drive in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles. The station opened on July 26, 2003, as part of the original Gold Line, then known as the "Pasadena Metro Blue Line" project.
Brookside Golf Course is a municipal golf facility located in Pasadena, California, United States. Adjacent to the Rose Bowl stadium in the city's Arroyo Seco Natural Park, the 36-hole facility offers the C.W. Koiner Course (#1) and the shorter E.O. Nay Course (#2), divided by the concrete-channeled Arroyo Seco.
Eaton Canyon is a major canyon beginning at the Eaton Saddle near Mount Markham and San Gabriel Peak in the San Gabriel Mountains in the Angeles National Forest, United States. Its drainage flows into the Rio Hondo river and then into the Los Angeles River. It is named after Judge Benjamin S. Eaton, who lived in the Fair Oaks Ranch House in 1865 not far from Eaton Creek.
Brookside Park is a major neighborhood in Pasadena, California. Its northern end is sometimes called Arroyo Terrace. It is Pasadena's second largest neighborhood by area, and its second most sparsely populated. The neighborhood is bordered by Oak Grove Drive to the north, the Arroyo Seco Canyon wall to the south, Linda Vista Avenue to the West, and Forest and Rosemont Avenues to the East.
Lower Arroyo is a neighborhood in Pasadena, California, centered on the Arroyo Seco south of Brookside Park. It is bordered by Holly Street to the north, Columbia Street to the south, San Rafael Avenue to the west, and Orange Grove Boulevard to the east.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Pasadena, California.
Northeast Los Angeles is a 17.18 sq mi (44.5 km2) region of Los Angeles County, comprising seven neighborhoods within the City of Los Angeles. The area is home to Occidental College located in Eagle Rock.
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Founded in 1874 and incorporated in 1886, the city is famous for its colorful history and for the hosting of both the Tournament of Roses Parade and the annual Rose Bowl game football game. It is also the home of the world-renowned California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
Pasadena Museum of History is a private, nonprofit museum and research library located in Pasadena, California. It is the only institution dedicated to the history, art and culture of historic Pasadena and the west San Gabriel Valley. Headquartered on the grounds of a century-old Pasadena estate, facilities include the Pasadena Museum History Center, the Fenyes Estate and gardens, a research library and archives, the Curtin House, and the Finnish Folk Art Museum. With public exhibits, tours, lectures, seminars, and workshops, the Pasadena Museum of History promotes an appreciation of history, culture, arts and sciences relevant to Pasadena and adjoining communities.
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