The mobile museum will have an array of multimedia exhibits.
History is hitting the road so you don’t have to.
The New Jersey Hall of Fame committee has announced plans to launch a summer-long trip for the first-ever mobile hall of fame museum.
The museum, which architect and New Jersey Hall of Fame inductee Michael Graves and Ralph Appelbaum Associates designed, will feature an 850-foot multimedia-savvy exhibit that unfolds from the back of a 53-foot, double expandable trailer. Due to the limited size of the museum, exhibits will rotate in use throughout the summer, according to Steve Edwards, president of the New Jersey Hall of Fame Foundation board.
Edwards said that the mobile museum will be introduced in a ceremony June 24 at Liberty State Park in Jersey City. Although noted Hall of Fame inductees such as astronaut Buzz Aldrin will be present, Edwards said he intends to have the museum's debut headline the day.
“We have an annual induction ceremony where we make a big push to get celebrities and inductees involved, but aside from Buzz Aldrin, we didn’t make one for this year,” he said. “It’s really the mobile museum that’ll be up front in the ceremony.”
From there, the museum will travel to the state capital in Trenton for its first open exhibit before going south to Atlantic City. The museum will then begin hitting all corners of the state as it travels north.
Edwards said it will travel through Belmawr, Asbury Park and the Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange before stopping in Long Branch for the 23rd Annual Ocean Fest on July 4. Dates for July through September will be announced after Independence Day.
During the museum's trip north, it will visit various state colleges and local high schools, giving students the opportunity to have a “field trip” on their own campus.
“We’ll be marketing it at every school,” Edwards said.
The induction of the New Jersey Hall of Fame Class of 2013 has not yet been announced, despite voting for ending earlier in May. There is an unconfirmed permanent location for the hall of fame, but Edwards said that the organization's board is “still a year away” from making that announcement or decision.
Former inductees include Walt Whitman, Woodrow Wilson, Les Paul, Danny DeVito, Carl Lewis, Carl Sagan and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
