The lure of Louisville: besides the Kentucky Derby, there's a lot to do in this cosmopolitan city - Going Places

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Sept, 2002 by Sheila Rothenberg, Robert S. Rothenberg

Upon exiting, we followed a group of excited children down the street to the Science Center, a bustling, hands-on pleasure palace for kids. Stretching the age limit severely, we got caught up in the excitement and decided to go in. Right up front is one of the most-popular features, a four-story rock-climbing wall. Youngsters outfitted with safety devices and under the supervision of vigilant attendants attempt to scale the wall using hand and foot holds. As they do, viewers cheer them on, and, although not all make it to the top, each climber is roundly applauded for his or her effort. Throughout the Center are myriad interactive exhibits that made us long to be kids again, such as The World Within Us, The World We Create, The Space Science Gallery (at the time featuring a traveling "Star Trek" exhibit), and Kidzone for the seven-and-under crowd, which encourages them to discover how things work, find the way to solve problems, and use their imaginations.

Across Main Street and down a block is the Louisville Slugger Museum, an attraction that draws young and old alike. Standing in the building's forecourt is a to-scale replica of the bat designed to specifications by New York Yankee slugger Babe Ruth in the early 1920s. Towering 120 feet high, it has been known to produce kinks in the necks of those craning to look up to the top of the mammoth cudgel, as well as to pose a photographic challenge. (Hint: shoot it from across the street.) The Hillerich & Bradsby Company's Louisville Slugger has been the official bat of Major League Baseball for decades, and the museum is a paean to that relationship. Designed to resemble the interior of a baseball stadium, there are barred sales booths from which admission tour tickets, resembling ball-park ducats, are dispensed. Behind glass, a pitching machine gives visitors the experience of facing a 90-mph fastball; a film medley shows great moments in baseball history and provides batting tips from an assortment of major league stars; there is an opportunity to sit in a dugout; memorabilia of the sport's greats is augmented by anecdotes from tour guides; and visitors can watch bats being turned out in the museum's factory, then place orders for personalized models made to their specifications as far as length and weight, and have their names engraved on their bats just like the pros do. To top off this engrossing and nostalgic tour, each person is presented with a miniature Louisville Slugger as a souvenir as he or she departs.

In the opposite direction from the picturesque downtown arts district and just 10 minutes from The Brown are the campus of the University of Louisville and the adjoining Speed Art Museum. Founded in 1925 by Hattie Bishop Speed as a memorial to her husband, James Breckinridge Speed, a prominent local businessman and philanthropist, the museum's focus is on Western art and a fine display of antiquities. An aggressive acquisitions program has resulted in a representative selection of works by such artistic luminaries as Paul Cezanne, Marc Chagall, Jean Dubuffet, Paul Klee, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Henry Moore, Thomas Gainsborough, Claude Monet, and Maurice Utrillo. For architectural enthusiasts such as ourselves, the Speed offers two rooms with furnishings brought over from Europe--a baronial dining hall and an Edwardian room with a huge fireplace--both enriched by hand-carved paneled walls and massive furniture, reminiscent of a similar exhibition at London's Victoria and Albert Museum.