Children's museum reopens with revamped Mr. Rogers exhibit

An expanded version of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood is ready to greet visitors to the revamped Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, which reopens Saturday.

The size of the Rogers exhibit, arguably the museum's main attraction, has been quadrupled, following a two-month, $28-million US expansion during which the museum had remained closed.

Where it previously comprised only King Friday's castle, the exhibit now also includes everything from a replica of Fred Rogers' "television house" to a life-sized mock-up of the trolley to the "Neighborhood of Make-Believe."

Visitors to the revamped museum can try on a facsimile of Mr. Rogers' cardigan and sneakers (his actual red cardigan hangs in the Smithsonian Institution), film their own version of the award-winning program, stage a puppet show, dress up in King Friday's castle or enjoy a number of other interactive educational games.

The idea of learning through play is core to the expanded exhibit, at the entrance of which a video of Rogers welcomes visitors and describes the area as a place to "think about, talk about or play about all kinds of things."

"We think that a lot of learning comes from play. It is how a lot of children learn about the world, and all of us, too. We wanted to make the best play experiences that we could," Jane Werner, the museum's executive director, told the Associated Press.

"My kids are 11 and 15 and they had a good time. They're a little jaded, they've been to a lot of museums, but they're engaged."

The Pennsylvania-born Rogers studied music in college and worked as a puppeteer on the show The Children's Corner, where he created many of the characters who would later appear on Neighborhood.

His show originated on CBC-TV in 1962 as the 15-minute-long Misterogers, which featured Ernie Coombs, better known to Canadians as Mr. Dressup, as a puppeteer. In 1968, Rogers moved the show to Pittsburgh, where it was produced for broadcast on public television until his retirement in 2001.

Rogers died of cancer in 2003 at the age of 74.