re: #63 nines09

Schools would send classes to Franklin Institute every day. School buses would be parked all around it.
So when we cut school in Jr High (7-9 grades) we would travel down to the Parkway and just slip in with the crowd of our age school trippers and walk right in.
I was probably there over 40 times.
School PTC tokens (pre SEPTA days) and free entry. And you didn’t look like a truant.
Fels Planetarium was always a great show.
Win win.

Buhl Planetarium served that role in ’50s Pittsburgh. It survives as the Heinz Children’s Center, doing much the same things. They had a massive Van de Graaff generator that threw arcs to a brass grounding strip in the walls of the vast hall.