On May 14, 2024 I had the absolute pleasure of visiting The Strong National Museum of Play, a Children’s Museum in Rochester, New York that was established in 1969 and has been open to the public since 1982. Even better, I met Derryl Depriest, former VP at Hasbro and author of several books including G.I. Joe and mostly recently a book about Star Wars: The Vintage Collection.
The museum is located at 1 Manhattan Square Dr, Rochester, NY 14607-3941, and I would strongly recommend visiting it. You can find out more details about the museum on their website.
The Strong National Museum of Play has tens of thousands items of on display and was originally focusing on the history of average Americans between 1830 and 1940, but has since expanded to toys released in the 2000’s.
Below is a gallery (embedded from Facebook and it’s too many images for our servers) of a lot of what I saw. Not shown in the gallery are the Hall of Fame entires from the second floor, including people and toys, including some sporting equipment that had two displays plus cases around them. There’s so much on display throughout the museum, and there’s something for everyone. In the gallery, you’ll see some G.I. Joe, Star Wars, LEGO, Barbie, Snoopy, Sesame Street, The Berenstain Bears and more!