iPad Kiosk Menu Key to Changing Landmark’s DNA, Transforming NY’s Past3 min read
When the New-York Historical Society (N-YHS) reopened on November 11, 2011 (11.11.11), following a 3-year, $70 million transformations, the first and oldest museum in New York City became the newest. WNET New York Public Media reported that the historic transformation, unveiled at the grand-reopening of the landmark building at 170 Central Park West, is replete with “state-of-the-art installations to connect visitors to history in more ways than ever before imagined.” The centerpiece of The Robert H. and Clarice Smith New York Gallery of American History (the “Smith Gallery”) – the N-YHS’ 3,400-square-foot main exhibition space on the first floor of the museum – is the permanent New York Rising installation, where the cutting-edge technology of an iPad kiosk menu captures and interprets New York City’s revolutionary and Federal periods through some of the N-YHS’ most treasured pieces.
According to Antiques and the Arts Online, the renovation “was the cornerstone of a new strategy to create a ‘radically different’ visitor experience.” Technology plays an integral part in that experience, from the rendering of Johannes Adam Simon Oertel’s 19th-century painting, Pulling Down the Statue of King George III, on a giant, motion-activated and visitor density-sensitive digital panel, which comes alive as increasing numbers of visitors enter the museum; to the 18-minute theatrical multimedia film experience of New York Story in the, state-of-the-art Robert H. Smith Auditorium; to the digital screens that transform the building’s original six columns into interactive kiosks in the Smith Gallery – where the large digital display mounted on the east face of each column plays a continuous slide show of artifacts from the N-YHS’ collections, thematically coordinated with the iPad kiosk menu mounted alongside a key historic object on the column’s west face, creating one of six stations that let visitors explore six themes of the interwoven history of New York and the American Experience through archeological finds recovered from beneath the city.
But, it’s New York Rising – the showcase 42-foot wall facing Central Park West – which the Wall Street Journal (the WSJ) says affords “the biggest wow factor.” Designed in the style of a 19th-century salon, and grouped, floor-to-ceiling, in five thematic sections, the wall contains around one hundred “paintings, documents, sculptures and other artefacts” dating from the American Revolution to the founding of the N-YHS in 1804. According to the WSJ, the sheer number and placement of the objects in the collection make it impossible to use standard wall plaques or labels. Instead, “to help visitors identify and investigate the plethora of objects,” each object is also archived in a virtual library collection on an interactive iPad kiosk menu, where it can be readily retrieved with just “a swirl of the screen and a swipe of the finger” and visitors can “find as much or as little information as they desire.”
The full-on renovation completely reinvents the 207-year-old museum, “changing the DNA of the building” and making it relevant and accessible. “Everything old is new again at the New-York Historical Society…With fresh ways [like the interactive iPad kiosk menu] to make history come alive,” says John Servidio, General Manager of WNET.org public television station WLIW21, “the Museum is a real treat for New Yorkers of all ages.”
For an inside look at the historic transformation and a tour of the latest additions, don’t miss the upcoming film, Treasures of New York: The New-York Historical Society hosted and narrated by Pulitzer-Prize winner Jon Meacham.
Disclaimer: This is an independent report sourced from one or more news articles and or press releases; none of the company’s, entities or technologies digressed in this report is affiliated with or a client of Open.
Open offers a unique All-in-One Solution that features an iPad kiosk menu which also includes a reservation app, integrated POS with remote access and an easy-to-use online interface. Click Here to learn more.
