We're Now Open!
For six decades, the Utica Children's Museum has been a beacon of education and play in the region. On May 1, 2025, the NEW Children’s Museum opened its doors as a destination for families from the region—and beyond! The 60+ exhibits and experiences celebrate the diverse cultures of the Mohawk Valley. Science, art, history, and culture are woven throughout, creating connections and a sense of home that helps people “love where they live” and inspires a lifelong love of learning.
Host An Event
We are currently planning all the exciting details for parties, events, field trips, and more. If you would like to be the first to know when bookings open, please join our email list.
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Celebrating our 60th anniversary in 2023
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Square feet of our new glass rotunda
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Square footage of the second floor
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Brand new galleries are being created
A Shared Mission
A longtime partnership with The Community Foundation and a synergetic collaboration with ICAN has led to a complete renewal for our museum. Together we can create equitable opportunities for our neighborhoods, our families and our region’s economy.
Universal Design
Our museum is the first in the country to be guided by Universal Design from conception through completion. Universal Design (UD) is a process that empowers diverse populations by improving human performance, health and wellness, and social participation. This approach addresses barriers faced by people with disabilities and other populations the design process typically overlooks. To learn more about Universal Design visit our partners at the University at Buffalo Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access.
Goals of Universal Design
- Body Fit: Accommodating a wide range of body sizes and abilities
- Comfort: Keeping demands within desirable limits of body function and perception
- Awareness: Ensuring that critical information for use is easily perceived
- Understanding: Making methods of operation and use intuitive, clear, and unambiguous
- Wellness: Contributing to health promotion, avoidance of disease, and protection from hazards
- Social Integration: Treating all groups with dignity and respect
- Personalization: Incorporating opportunities for choice and the expression of individual preferences
- Cultural Appropriateness: Respecting and reinforcing cultural values, and the social and environmental contexts of any design project
Benefits of Universal Design
There are a multitude of benefits that UD offers.
- Children experience safety and security.
- Adults have reduced stress.
- Older adults find support for independence.
- People with disabilities have independent functions.
- Those with varied size, stature, and sensitivities will easily experience a space or building.
- Those with different non-physical characteristics – income, gender, culture, or education – will feel comfortable and welcome.
Universal Design at the Children’s Museum
Throughout the Children’s Museum, you’ll find ways in which Universal Design will be implemented. Some examples are:
- Variety of benches - with backs to offer additional support to those with limited trunk control, varying heights for younger guests as well as those with mobility issues (i.e. knee issues), and benches that offer ease of transfer from a wheelchair.
- Signage in sizes and fonts that offer the most readability.
- Traffic flow throughout the space that allows for ease of movement.
Our Partners
We have assembled a team of local, regional, and national experts who are providing trusted guidance and championing the museum’s reinvention.
Hands On! Studio is an exhibition master planning and design firm specializing in children’s museums and science centers. Hands On! Has been designing projects nationally and internationally for more than 30 years.
An integrated architecture, engineering, interior design, and construction management firm in Albany, NY, CSArch specializes in collaborative mixed-use projects with a focus on education and designing spaces for children that support 21st century learning. Through a collaborative process built on strong client relationships, CSArch creates spaces that have enduring, transformative impact, that maximize resources and deeply impact the people who experience them.
Based at the University of Buffalo, this center is helping us plan the first museum in the nation to focus on both building and exhibit design that is fully inclusive and Universal Design certified.
A part of the Utica business community for over 50 years, they are a full-service General Contracting, Construction Management, and Design Build construction firm.