Museum improvements stress interactivity, community
Plans for Menlo Park Museum expansion presented to residents
BY CHRIS GAETANO Staff Writer
Plans for a vast expansion to theMenlo Park Museum in Edison, which is dedicated to the life and work of famed inventor and township namesake Thomas Alva Edison, were introduced to the public during anApril 3 meeting at the municipal building.

SCOTT FRIEDMAN staff The area directly behind the tower, now a grove of trees, would be cleared to make way for a new education center in a proposed expansion to the Menlo Park Museum, which commemorates the life and achievements of famed inventor Thomas Alva Edison.

Residents were shown artists' renderings of what the new facility might look like, as well as potential site plans and aerial views. All the while, architects and designers hired by the nonprofit Edison Memorial Tower Corp. (EMTC) talked about their vision for the site's future and preserving the inventor's legacy.

"This [site] represents the primary symbol of our community. … The hard work, dedication and spirit of innovation he left for our community," said Edison Township Mayor Jun Choi.

Nancy Zerbe, president of the EMTC, said that after lengthy community input, a desire for theMenlo ParkMuseum to really get beyond the traditional museum model began to make itself apparent. She said the site should become a center for the community, a source of civic pride, and could be more integrated into the surrounding Edison State Park as a whole. The facility, said Zerbe, would focus not only on the life and times of Thomas Edison, but on the creative and scientific process that guided him as well.

"[It will be] not just a collection.… People want to learn about the history ofMenlo Park, but they also want to learn about the spirit of innovation," said Zerbe. "We want a museum as a core, but we want something beyond that."

Michael Farewell, the firm's architect, talked about some of his ideas to accomplish this. He said the site could house not only the core museum but also learning labs and classrooms that could host educational programs, a theater for demonstrations, and exhibit halls that would have different content over time, so people would have reason to come back at later dates.

Farewell then presented three different plans for housing all of these features. He said he believes that buildings that are "capable of growth," that are easy to add extensions to, would be best, with a core facility at its heart. Farewell displayed three different plans, with the smallest having one component and the largest having three.While the currentmain entrance is from Christie Street, construction would change it to Frederick Street. Zerbe previously had said that the site, once construction is complete, could be anywhere from 5,400 to 22,300 square feet.

No matter what form the plan takes, however, it will encompass the

Edison Memorial Tower - an

obelisk built by those who worked with the famous inventor to honor his life - within its grounds. At the moment the tower, which is also the subject of a fundraising campaign to enact repairs, sits some distance from the current museum.

After that, designer Andrea Rolleri talked about what the content of the new facility might look like. She said that first and foremost, it was important to make connections to show how Thomas Edison's life and work are still relevant today. This, she said, can be accomplished through interactive displays and exhibits that allow visitors to the facility to invent and innovate.

"We don'twant an object-based story that people go once to," said Rolleri. "We wanted this site to be all about interactivity."

Rolleri said that even objects that may seem static should be brought to life, such as flat-panel video displays about Thomas Edison's life that could have touch-screen interactivity to help people explore more. Other ideas included echo tubes that demonstrate how sound travels, or wave devices that show how wave motion works. In this sense, it would function more like a science and technology museum, emphasizing the principles behind science rather than its products.

"It's a center and not just a collection of history," said Rolleri.

Zerbe said that while a lot ofmoney has already been collected, including a $500,000 state grant, $400,000 in private donations and a $375,000 matching grant from the U.S. mint acquired through achieving the private donations, there is still a long way to go. But she expects fundraising to get easier at this point, however, because there are now specifics as to what the center will have, and so people will have a more concrete idea about what they are contributing toward.

Farewell said that in a best-case scenario, there would be a minimum of one year of getting through planning and approval, four months of finalizing the drawings, and between one and one and a half years of construction, though this does not take fundraising into account, which could take much longer.

Generally, people reacted positively to the presentation and were excited at the prospect. One resident, IreneWall, said she likes the idea of the museum, but also believes that the tower is a higher priority and that more attention should be paid to its rehabilitation.