Us: Fairly cosmopolitan family from Australia, with 4 kids (4 to 10 years of age).
Cost: Free! About 30min of touring time.
The Cable Car Museum is a small display-based museum, built around the powerhouse that drives the underground cables. There are some minor interactive things (peepshows about San Francisco history driven by quarters), but in general the museum consists of text to be read or pictures/items to be looked at. Main topics are the introduction and antecedents to the cable cars, the technology of the cable cars, the heyday of the cable car system, the Great Fire, and the decline of the system.
Without the kids I would have lingered a little longer and enjoyed the museum more. Generally, I quite enjoy passive museum displays, especially if there is primary material on display - it means that I can reflect on how a museum's contents expand my own understand of a given subject. In this case, I was astonished by the map that showed just how much of central San Francisco was destroyed by the earthquake and fire in 1906 (ie. all of it west of Van Ness, pretty much).
However, being on "kid patrol", I was more trying to prevent the rugrats from looting the shop or touching the "do not touch" items than being able to engross myself to the level I wanted to.
Although the displays did not mean much to the kids, the machinery-minded boys loved seeing the huge drive wheels and cables, and promptly grasped the cable car system after a few minutes in the museum. From that point onwards, they have been peering down into the tracks on (busy) San Franciscan streets listening and looking for the drive cables.
OVERALL: Given it is free, I strongly recommend taking a peek in this museum if you are in the area (ie. Chinatown) and have a little free time. Adults might appreciate the displays; kids might appreciate the impressive machinery. But this is not a "must-see" if your time is limited.
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| Sorry Benny, it doesn't turn! |
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| Yes - we are working on Oli's "photo face". |
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| How to hypnotize an Oliver |
