City Museum
Specialty Museum · St. Louis, Missouri
A former International Shoe Company warehouse in downtown St. Louis that the sculptor Bob Cassilly and his then-wife Gail opened in 1997, filled with salvaged architectural and industrial material rebuilt into something you climb through rather than look at. There are tunnels made of rebar and old aircraft fuselages, a ten-storey slide, two decommissioned planes on the roof and a school bus hanging off the edge of the building. Calling it a museum is a formality; nothing else in the world is quite like it, and it is genuinely as much for adults as for children.
750 North 16th Street, St. Louis, Missouri, 63103, United States
Generally open Wednesday to Sunday with longer hours on Friday and Saturday nights, and CLOSED SOME WEEKDAYS outside summer - the schedule changes seasonally and around school holidays, so check citymuseum.org for your date. THE ROOFTOP IS SEASONAL and closed in winter and in bad weather, which is worth knowing because it is a substantial part of what you are paying for.