Hamilton Children’s Museum reopens in Gage Park after five years

It’s been a long wait for Hamilton families, but the doors are officially open again. The Hamilton Children’s Museum reopened this weekend after nearly five years, and kids are already giving their stamp of approval.

The excitement in the building Saturday hasn’t been heard inside the children’s museum since 2020 when the space shut down during the pandemic.

Now, after years of planning, construction and community pop-ups, the beloved Gage Park museum is officially back.

“It was very nice to see everybody walking through the doors today,” said Karen McCartney, museum curator.

“So much fun, so much activities and exploration. So for us, we were just so excited. We had to come first thing,” said parent Ashley Hopkins.

The museum, originally an 1875 farmhouse, has welcomed families since 1979. And after a multi-year expansion, the space has more than doubled in size. The museum now offers 6,300 square feet of interactive exhibits.

This museum was originally supposed to reopen last fall but construction and infrastructure upgrades pushed that timeline back. City staff say the extra time allowed them to build a space that’s brighter, bigger and fully accessible.

“We’ve added this expansion, which is a totally different building that sits next to the original house. This is a huge gallery space where we have four different components — actually five — that are all interactive,” said McCartney.

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“We’ve got an urban area, we’ve got kind of like our agriculture/greenhouse area, we’ve got our harbour and then we’ve got the escarpment as well, too. And it’s really showing off the uniqueness of Hamilton because we have all of these beautiful things in Hamilton that no real other city has,” said Scott Foster, museum educator interpreter.

The expansion was funded by more than $6 million in federal, provincial and municipal funding.

And for families, there’s one more bonus.

“The best part is that me and my son can come for free with our library card and it makes it easy for us to keep coming back again and again,” said parent Zoe Witt.

The grand reopening ceremony was held Saturday with city officials attending the event, including Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath.

“It fulfills our obligation as a city, which we’ve had for some time, that our city will be the best place to raise a child. And this helps us do exactly that,” said Horwath.

Hamilton’s Children’s Museum is now open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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