Louisville is receiving a new museum designed similarly to the City Museum of St. Louis: Portland Museum’s Adventure House of You (AHOY). The AHOY Museum will be an exploratory adventure for children to travel through and learn about themselves.
The Portland Museum, in Louisville’s Portland neighborhood, began in the 1970s as students at Roosevelt Elementary began curating neighborhood artifacts into exhibitions at the school. When the amount of artifacts piled up, the students traveled to Washington, D.C. and received a large grant to officially create the museum.
Now, the Portland Museum has started construction on the AHOY Children’s Museum, its latest project. The building is focused on interactive, play-based experiences for children. While Louisville has many activities for children, this project is centered in the West End, where opportunities for children to play freely are inadequate. Additionally, the museum is being used to create an area for children to play specifically in Louisville and not outside the city or the state.
Danny Seim, the director of the AHOY project at the Portland Museum, consistently took his children elsewhere for experiences like the City Museum of St. Louis. When prompted about why Seim’s family had to travel, the idea for the AHOY Museum sprang to life. Seim and Katy Delahanty, the director of the Portland Museum and a Manual graduate, have worked together to take the idea and create a plan of action. Seim has been a lifelong resident of the West End and recognized that the area lacks adequate entertainment areas for young children.
During the pandemic, Seim and Delehanty bought the spaces adjacent to the Portland Museum in preparation for AHOY and other projects. One of the buildings is designed to be what the museum is calling a “lighthouse,” a center for programming and residences, while the other is the Children’s Museum.
When entering the Children’s Museum, attendees will go through a Tiktalik’s mouth, an ancient fish that hailed from the Kentucky region. The fish is meant to represent the whimsical and mythical nature of Louisville and the Portland area. However, the museum is not meant to be solely educational.
“It’s not a place where you’re going to have a bunch of texts that tells you what this is. It’s something where you get to interact in a very playful and joyful way at your own time,” Delahanty said.
Delahanty is particularly proud of the level of influence that attendees will have on their own experience. Children are invited to play with and manipulate maneuverable parts of AHOY to create their own museum. Moreover, the museum in its entirety advocates for children to learn on their own.
Delahanty hopes that the museum can bring children from across the nation to explore and experience AHOY, and while this is occurring, the West End also reaps the economic benefits. Being a resident and having grown up in the area, Delahanty advocates for child care and grocery stores in the West End, but also wants to stay away from gentrification. Overall, Delahanty wishes that the AHOY Children’s Museum can unite the city from east to west.
As the seasons go on, AHOY will transition through different themes. The museum will give free or reduced tickets to families with lower income through a pilot program “Prescription for Play.” For other families, the museum will have regular prices that are being determined and there will be a joint membership with the Kentucky Science Center and other places.
The project is almost complete, but the museum is waiting to reach their fundraising goal of $2.5 million, which they are currently $250,000 away from. Delahanty encourages everyone to donate, no matter how little. The museum, which is set to open in about a year, plans to recognize the larger donations through memorialization. Delahanty encourages Manual students to apply to work there as an intern or in an official position. To learn more about AHOY, or to donate, visit the project’s website.
