The Glazer Children's Museum is a non-profit

children's museum Children's museums are institutions that provide exhibits and programs to stimulate informal learning experiences for children. In contrast with traditional museums that typically have a hands-off policy regarding exhibits, children's museums fea ...

located in downtown

Tampa, Florida Tampa ( ) is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. Tampa's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and t ...

, next to the

Tampa Museum of Art The Tampa Museum of Art is located in Downtown Tampa, downtown Tampa, Florida. It exhibits modern and contemporary art, as well as Art in Ancient Greece, Greek, Ancient Rome, Roman, and Etruscan civilization, Etruscan antiquities. The museum open ...

and Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, alongside the

Tampa Riverwalk The Tampa Riverwalk is a open space and pedestrian trail along the Hillsborough River in Tampa, Florida. The Riverwalk extends along most of the downtown Tampa waterfront from the Channelside District on the eastern terminus to the mouth of ...

. It is part of the Downtown River Arts neighborhood. Housed in a 53,000-square-foot facility in

downtown Tampa Downtown Tampa is the central business district of Tampa, Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States, and the chief financial district of the Tampa Bay Area. It is second only to Westshore, Tampa, Westshore regarding employment in the area. Compani ...

, the museum features interactive

exhibits An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibition ...

in multiple themed areas. Traveling exhibits occasionally supplement the museum's permanent collection as well.

History

The history of Glazer Children's Museum dates back to the 1965 opening of Safety Village in Lowry Park. The Children's Museum of Tampa, Inc. was founded in 1986 by community volunteers and with support of many private and public partners. The Children's Museum of Tampa served children and families in the

Tampa Bay Area The Tampa Bay area is a major metropolitan area surrounding Tampa Bay on the Gulf Coast of Florida in the United States. It includes the main cities of Tampa, Florida, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Florida, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater, Florida, Clea ...

for over two decades. From humble beginnings in a small storefront location, the

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

provided exhibits that gave children a safe place to learn and play. In 1989, with support from the City of Tampa, the museum relocated next to the city

zoo A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility where animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for conservation purposes. The term ''zoological garden'' refers to zoology, ...

. This site operated under the name Kid City and consisted of a series of outdoor miniature buildings simulating a small town. From 1989 to 2003, Kid City was an ideal space for the museum to provide

curriculum In education, a curriculum (; : curriculums or curricula ) is the totality of student experiences that occur in an educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view of the student's experi ...

centered on the value of community. Kid City served over 750,000 visitors from the Tampa Bay Area and became an important part of the cultural and educational fabric of the community. In 2003, museum volunteers and staff began looking at the next step of expansion to meet the needs of its community. After conducting a feasibility study and gathering input from more than 400 people, plans were drawn for a new 53,000-square-foot state-of-the-art

in downtown Tampa's new Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park. After a $22 million

capital campaign Fundraising or fund-raising is the process of seeking and gathering voluntary financial contributions by engaging individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. Although fundraising typically refers to efforts to gathe ...

to build the new building, construction began in March 2009 and was completed in April 2010, the museum was then opened on September 25, 2010. In honor of the Glazer Family Foundation, who had donated $5 million, the Museum was named as Glazer Children's Museum. In its first year of operation, the museum served 250,000 guests, donated more than 25,000 admission tickets to underserved youth populations, and saw approximately 26,000 children during school field trips and educational programs. Since its opening in 2010, Glazer Children's Museum has hosted more than two million guests and is an integral part of the cultural corridor of museums, libraries, theaters, and performing arts centers in Tampa Bay.

Big John fossil

Big John triceratops sold at auction in Paris

In January 2023, the museum announced it would host a three-year public exhibition of Big John, a fossilized ''

Triceratops ''Triceratops'' ( ; ) is a genus of Chasmosaurinae, chasmosaurine Ceratopsia, ceratopsian dinosaur that lived during the late Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous Period (geology), period, about 68 to 66 million years ago on the island ...

'', on loan for Tampa-based businessman Siddhartha Pagidipati. Upon its arrival, the fossil was reconstructed in less than a week and displayed at the museum's annual gala on February 3, 2023. The museum announced that it would end its rule prohibiting adults from attending the museum without accompanying children. The Big John exhibition, including an interactive hands-on play area, opened on May 26, 2023.

Awards and Accolades

Source: * 2012 - Recipient of Educational Outreach Award from WEDU Be More Awards * 2015 - Recipient of Educational Outreach Award from WEDU Be More Awards * 2016 - Recipient of Diversity and Inclusion Award from FL Division of Cultural Affairs * 2017 - Non-Profit of the Year: Arts, Culture and Humanities from Tampa Bay Business Journal * 2017 - Finalist in the WEDU Be More Awards * 2019 - Finalist in the Tampa Downtown Partnership Urban Excellence Awards * 2019 - Finalist in the WEDU Be More Awards * 2019 - Best Place to Have a Birthday Party from Tampa Bay Times Best of the Best Awards * 2019 - Employer of the Year from Mayor's Alliance for Persons with Disabilities * 2019 - Marketer of the Year from AMA Tampa Bay * 2019 - Non-Profit of the Year Honoree from TBBJ ONE Tampa Bay * 2020 - Finalist: Best International Digital Activity from Kids in Museums]

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Glazer Children's Museum Museums in Tampa, Florida Children's museums in Florida 1987 establishments in Florida