The Strong and Toy Industry Association Form Hall of Fame Partnership
The Strong and the Toy Industry Association (TIA) have entered a partnership to house TIA’s Toy Industry Hall of Fame alongside The Strong’s National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, N.Y.
The two halls of fame—one recognizing classic toys and the other recognizing the individuals who designed, made, and sold them—will share a cutting-edge, $4 million state-of-the-art museum installation, 75 percent of which will be funded by TIA and the toy industry. The two halls and their high-tech housing is expected to draw regional and national attention as America’s most beloved toys are recognized together with toy industry luminaries, such as Walt Disney, George Lucas, and F.A.O. Schwarz, along with the founders of Hasbro, Lego, Mattel, and Radio Flyer.
By the fall of 2015, The Strong’s existing 5,000-square-foot National Toy Hall of Fame gallery will be fully transformed and renovated to accommodate the new halls. Positioned alongside a dramatic, winding staircase and within a caterpillar-shaped atrium, the new gallery will feature a programmable 100-foot-long by 20-foot-high LED theatrical screen visible from the street through a circular glass wall. The giant screen will blend stop-motion animated effects, pulsating color, and sound to highlight messages about toys, invention, and play. These dramatic, ever-changing displays will serve as a visual magnet for both guests in the gallery and passersby in downtown Rochester.
Additional gallery components will include a second, smaller LED theatrical screen, an orientation theater, and five highly interactive, artifact-rich play environments that feature distinct modes of play—imagine, create, build, move, and compete. Inductees will be recognized on individual etched glass panels mounted on two dramatically lit, 14-foot-high curvilinear glass walls. Artifacts, documents, touch-screen interactivity, and physical play will position the inductees of both halls in the broad cultural context of play and its impact on the social history of everyday life.
