"For the first time since it was founded in 1899, the museum now occupies flexible spaces specifically designed for its programs. Rather than creating a new building to replace the original house-museum, the design called for a submerged facility that allows Brower Park to expand over the museum's roof. The museum's design involves a continuous juxtaposition of forms, materials, and spatial experiences. The process of discovery begins as one enters through a kiosk (which formerly served the Queensboro Bridge), passing by grain silos and highway signs that evoke and define the museum's presence below. A 180-foot-long ramp breaks at each of the museum's four exhibition floors to provide access to a diverse, multilevel changing space."

— Mildred F Schmertz. Hardy Holtzman Pfieffer Associates: Buildings and Projects. 246.

"This underground museum—a four-level, open-plan facility—offers kids a bounty of hands-on learning experiences in highly original ways. It's topped by a playground that parades highway signage, a silo, and a subway kiosk that serves as the building's entrance. Inside there's a 'people tube' that carries sluiceways of water and swirls of neon as well as visitors; there's also a greenhouse of plants, a lucite jungle gym that replicates a molecule's structure, and many other attractions."

— from Sylvia Hart Wright. Sourcebook of Contemporary North American Architecture: From Postwar to Postmodern. p43.

Address

In Brower Park at the intersection of Brooklyn and Saint Marks Avenues.