The New West End Museum

We are finally ready to share our plans for the brand new WEM! The rebuilt Museum is built to accommodate all our activities, and to guide the next generation of visitors, along with returning guests, through the West End Story. Despite this, please understand that images and details in this article may still be subject to changes in design, etc.

Upon entering, guests will immediately face a large digital display showing images of the people and structures that have made up the West End over time. Immediately in front of this display, visitors will find a remnant of the Madison Hotel, once the tallest structure in the neighborhood, and to their left, a wall of brick from the Winchell School and West End House (WEH). Painted on these bricks will be the names of the Museum’s top supporters, along with the West End House Honor Roll, one of the Museum’s most engaging large-scale pieces, which memorializes WEH members who served in the World Wars. 

To the right, guests will find a greeting desk where they can get tickets and find a selection of Museum merchandise. The desk itself  will be built in the style of a mid-century cabinet, further contributing to the immersive experience of entering the Museum.

To the left of the Welcome Area, the Main Gallery will hold the Museum’s new permanent exhibition. The exhibit, which will be fully collapsible to allow for large events and rentals, will explore the core narrative of The West End Museum, the exploration of the vast changes that have shaped the space over the past 4 centuries, and the celebration of the diversity of peoples that those changes produced. 

The exhibit will be divided into subsections, each of which will cover a specific topic within the West End story: Birth of the West End, The Urban Village, And They Call This A Slum…?, The West End Projects, Scollay Square, Impact Echoes and Activism, and The West End Today. Each subsection will contain a combination of static interpretive material, display cases, and digital media. Half the digital media displays will be interactive, allowing guests to explore the West End story at their own pace and in their own way, focusing on the things that are important to them. 

After we reopen, fundraising will continue for the remaining sections of the Museum: the Special Exhibitions, Video Exhibitions, and Interactive Map.  

This space, including 3 display cases and ample wall space, will hold various temporary exhibits produced by the Museum and our partners. We currently plan for our first opening in the gallery to happen 1-2 months after the Museum reopens. 

While something will be presented here in the interim, this 2-3 wall immersive video room will ultimately allow guests to experience the visceral nature of the West End’s destruction. The theater will be developed with 2 films. The first will utilize the Museum’s collections to show visitors the dramatic and heartbreaking destruction of the neighborhood and its human impacts. The second film will tell the story of the Black Abolitionists of the West End. 

The eventual centerpiece of the Main Gallery will be an interactive map table. This digital model of the West End will be a uniquely engaging draw for visitors. It will function as both a digital map of the West End, allowing visitors to explore the changes in the landscape, streetscape, and character of the neighborhood over its four centuries, and an urban planning game. The game will instruct visitors, and especially students, on how urban planning influences their lives and how they can influence it.