GR Museum before next renovation to become a school.

These photos were taken on April 3, 2014, and show various parts of the old Grand Rapids Museum, on the NE corner of Jefferson and Washington. A WPA project, the building is of very substantial construction, and still in very good condition. Incredibly, it is now being converted to a city school, for grades 6 to 12...

Having made perhaps 100 visits to this museum as a youngster, I can still envision what was in room in the early 1950s. A few of the exhibits from those times are still in place. Others are in store. I can only hope that things like the rock and mineral collection find a new home in their entirety. In many ways the exhibits were timeless, and would engage the curiosity of today's young as well as they did 60 years ago.

So, a parting view of the museum many of us knew so many years ago. In many ways the inside is already changed from what it was in the 1950s. In other ways, the exhibits haven't changed a bit.