During this semester, my boyfriend and I
attended the city museum. Actually, it
was a really fun time. The city museum is a museum that is created largely with
repurposed architectural and industrial objects. Upon arriving, we paid for our
tickets for the inside as well as the roof. The experience is almost
indescribable. It was like a giant adult playground/ maze. It was a jungle gym
on steroids. The inside was filled with a fake “jungle” scene where you were
able to go under the ground and climb up into the trees and even the tree
trunks. Upstairs, there was a circus room with kids doing trapezes. There were ginormous slides; it felt like I
was a giant child in a giant playground. After Chad and I became bored, we
decided to go to the roof to see the new obstacles. There was a school bus that
was placed so it looked like it was falling off the roof, you could walk in the
bus and look down. There was a pond with stepping-stones that you could hop on
from one to the other. There was a gigantic slide that you could walk up by pulling
yourself up with a rope, and then slide down. There was also this giant metal,
ladder, tunnel contraption you could climb to the very top in. At the very top
was a spectacular view overlooking Saint Louis. At first thought, I decided
that there was no way this could possible relate to my women’s studies class,
but then it dawned on me that the museum was absolutely not accessible for
people in wheel chairs. People with this disability in particular, sure they
could get from floor to floor with the elevator but they couldn’t enjoy any of
the attractions other than looking. The secret passageways that led to the
underground or the maze weren’t wide enough to allow a wheel chair through. The
roof wasn’t any better. There wasn’t a wheel chair ramp to get into the bus,
and there wasn’t a way for someone in a wheel chair to get the very top to look
at the beautiful view. We’ve talked in class about how society makes people with
disabilities feel disabled because society doesn’t adjust, and the city museum
seems to be a perfect example. They should make the museum more accessible to
the best of their ability. I think they
could do this by widening the walkway in the maze, and also adding a ramp to
the school bus. They could also make a ramp that lets a person get to the top
of the roof. It isn’t fair that people who might be handicapped wont be able to
experience the City Museum the way they might want to!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.