Virtual Exhibitions

There is very large table in one of the rooms in the airconditioned section of the building.  It's actually made of several smaller but still quite sizable tables, and surface area wise, it's probably about as big as an average sized room.  It's a sort of interim place for items which have been taken out of the mugginess of the rest of the building, but haven't found another home yet.  They have yet to be boxed and shelved, and put away lovingly.  Instead they sit waiting among an assortment of other random objects.

One of the artifacts on the table is a very old GE fan that weighs a ton.  It's very small, but a full sized standing fan made these days would probably be easier to carry.  Perhaps what most gives away its age is the cage around the blade.  An adult could easily fit their hands through the bars on accident, to say nothing of a child.  It simply wouldn't fly today. 

There is also an old fashioned radio, surprisingly light for its size.  It's back, where all the wires go in, is a lot more hollow than I would have guessed from old pictures.

We also have train lanterns.  One light is blue, and the other is red, but I'm not entirely sure of their function.  I'm assuming it was a sort of stop/go message system, like modern traffic lights, but as to where they were hung or how and when they were lit, I haven't a clue.

My favorite item is a music player.  I'm not exactly sure what its official name is, but I would have referred to it as a phonograph.  Either way it plays wax cylinders.  We have two music cylinders which go with it too.  One is mounted on the player and is titled: "Tell Mother I'll Be There".  The other is labeled as a "laughing story" titled "Uncle Josh's Trip to Coney Island".

We can't listen to the cylinders but here's a youtube video of a record of "Tell Mother I'll be There":

And "Uncle Josh's Trip to Coney Island" courtesy of the Library of Congress.