Things to Find
Get lost in twists, turns, corners and caverns.
City Museum is filled with weirdly wonderful spaces to explore. With a rooftop and four floors full of installations, attractions, collections and more, there’s almost too much to see and do. Did we mention we sell Memberships?
Get to know some of our favorites and plan a visit to experience them yourself.
Need a Little Guidance?
Let us show you around. We offer guided tours full of the weirdly wonderful stories behind City Museum.
Lose yourself to find your path in Labyrinth, City Museum’s largest new installation since Toddler Town debuted in 2018! Officially opening to the public on July 4, 2025, Labyrinth is the most expansive build-out ever on the museum’s fourth floor, combining art, architecture, and a whole lot of imagination with relics of St. Louis area’s industrial past.
85’
length of Labyrinth slide
9
hidden keys
100
twinkie pans
Determined to find a better use for the roof than a dog park and chicken roost, City Museum’s founder, Bob Cassilly, and his crew added fountains and giant slides to reunite visitors with the Big Eli Ferris Wheel, the bus and the praying mantis that call the roof home. The rooftop is open nearly year-round (weather and other factors permitting) and access is free to our Gold Member Pass holders and just an additional $8 add-on to the price of a general admission ticket.
3,000
Pounds of Praying Mantis
1
STL Science Center Planetarium Dome
1
Out-of-Commission Bus
Pinball Hall is a vintage game room with 18 pinball games and 6 arcade games. Our pinball games are all electro mechanical with most of the collection hailing from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. The oldest machine is from 1959 and the newest is from 1977. Pinball Hall is nestled on the side of Beatnik Bob’s on the 3rd floor and is the largest playable electro mechanical pinball collection in St. Louis!
Add Pinball Hall to your admission and enjoy unlimited play time during your visit!
City Museum is built around the old spiral chutes of the shoe warehouse it once was. Inspired by the utility of gravity, the artists have not missed the opportunity to include a slide in nearly every installation.
7
Toddler Town Slides
3
Rooftop Slides
1
5-Story Spiral Slide
30+
Total Slides
Purportedly man-made chambers wind through the heart of the City Museum past sculptures of mythical creatures and a 1925 Wurlitzer organ. Climb to the top and take a multi-story spiral slide down. But watch out for the Spider Cave on your way up.
An outdoor sculpture of flotsam and repurposed technology including climbers, airplanes, castles, bridges, and fire engines.
2
Sabreliner 40 Aircraft Fuselages
4
Foot-Story Wrought-Iron Slinky
1
Rocket Ship
Art City is open Thursday-Sundays 10 am – 4 pm. Check out our calendar for activities! Art City staff has a variety of projects for you to do: cut and fold dragons and dinos, sculpt a little brother, paint a house or make a mosaic.
Featuring real and sculptural creatures alike, the Artquarium encourages guests to stick their hands in the Doctor Fish tank for an aquatic manicure and to slide down the inside of a life-sized whale. The resident Axolotls are the stars of the show, but don’t tell the chameleons.
Artquarium hours are from 10-6pm.
Located in the City Circus on the 3rd floor, run away and join the circus without leaving City Museum! Circus Harmony is a non-profit circus organization using juggling, acrobatics, magic and more to motivate social change. Stop in the circus ring on the third floor to see a free show or take a class.
Wasn’t having more fun and getting in shape some of what you decided for the New Year? You’ve always wanted to try circus and now you can and should! You’ve gotta start somewhere and sometime. Why not now?
Register NOW for Summer classes with Circus Harmony at City Museum to join this amazing activity for ages 3 to adult. Classes include basic circus arts, aerials, juggling, unicycling, wire-walking, and tumbling.
Register here:
586
Shows performed last year
83
83 Classes and workshops conducted last year
This battery-powered train is modeled after an American Locomotive Company (ALCO) line. Trains in this company were used by many railroads across the U.S., including the New York Central and other lines running into St. Louis. The City Express engine is 1/8 the size of the original, weighs 800 pounds, and uses two DC motors run by three 12 volt batteries.
The train was donated to City Museum by native St. Louisan Samuel B. Murphy and his wife, Barbara C. Murphy. A lifelong train enthusiast, Sam Murphy had this model built by David and Will Kloppenberg in Union, Missouri. It took two years to complete and made its first run in 1997. Murphy wanted to share his love of trains with the world by donating this model to City Museum.
The train is open from 11-5pm during Museum operating days.
City Museum is home to endless collections, including George Diehl’s collection of taxidermy butterflies, moths and insects; a museum full of everyday items that were found in outhouses (none of them are what you would expect); thousands of art slides from The Metropolitan Museum of Art; and of course, historic architectural remnants from cities near and far.
1,000s
Of Things Found in Outhouses
2nd Largest
Collection of Louis Sullivan Architecture
Vintage 1940 “Big Eli” Ferris wheel was purchased from a traveling circus and now provides some of the best views in the City.
Built during a less litigious time, this onetime skate park is now a collection of slides and ramps built around the World’s Largest Working Pencil.
While much of the museum is an artistic ode to the “stuff” of St. Louis and other cities, the St. Louis Art Gallery includes artwork by contemporary artists not previously associated with, or in some cases even exposed to, City Museum. These pieces were instead chosen for their relevance and visual or tactile appeal, and we think they fit right in. Gallery hours are from 11-5pm during Museum operating days.
Built by artist Ashrita Furman, the pencil was installed in Skateless Park after an extended discussion among members of the Cassilly crew about what to do with it.
76
Feet Long
No. 2
Pencil
21k+
Pounds of Pencil
4,000
Pounds of Graphite
Smaller versions of slides and climbers give families a place made just for our visitors age 6 and under. There is a nursing room on the east wall.
Initially planted only on the first floor, giant tree trunks and slides began to spread up through the second and third floors and burrowed into tunnels underneath the museum. Third Floor Treehouse spillage can be found near the spider net.
