Latest news with #PeoriaRiverfrontMuseum
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Giant Dinosaurs Take Over Peoria Riverfront Museum
PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — The Peoria Riverfront Museum has officially gone prehistoric. Thursday, it roared to life with the opening of a brand-new exhibition: 'The World's Largest Dinosaur.' This immersive display brings visitors face-to-face with some of the largest creatures to ever walk the Earth, sauropods. Some of them grew up to 150 feet or the length of four city buses. The museum's exhibit will feature a life-sized 60-foot-long Mamenchisaurus, with one of the longest necks of any dinosaur. Those long-necked giants are childhood favorites. They were featured in cartoons and the groups features one of the most famous dinos of all time: the Brontosaurus, the 'Thunder Lizard.' The gentle giants — they were plant-eaters unlike their cousins, Tyrannosaurus Rex — are the focus of the new exhibit, which started Thursday and lasts through Sept. 1. 'The World's Largest Dinosaurs,' presented by the Gilmore Foundation, made its Midwest debut from the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Along with life-size models, the experience digs deep into the science behind sauropods, exploring everything from how they grew to such enormous sizes to the biology required to keep their massive bodies functioning. Renae Kerrigan, the museum's curator of science, hopes the exhibit does more than just impress with its scale. 'Maybe it makes somebody think about, 'I want to learn more about the other types of dinosaurs that lived on the planet,'' she said. 'Or maybe, 'Well, why aren't there dinosaurs here today? What happened to dinosaurs?' You might start to learn about how birds are actually the descendants of dinosaurs. 'I just hope it inspires people to continue learning more about something that piques their curiosity here at the museum,' Kerrigan said. In addition to the jaw-dropping scale of the displays, the exhibition also delves into the fascinating world of dinosaur eggs, growth patterns, and the biomechanics of how these giants might have pumped blood through their enormous bodies. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Dinosaur exhibit to makes Midwest debut at Peoria Riverfront Museum
PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — A dinosaur exhibit from the American Museum of Natural History in New York will be making its Midwest debut at the Peoria Riverfront Museum. 'The World's Largest Dinosaurs,' presented by the Gilmore Foundation, will open at the museum on May 24. The exhibit will feature long-necked sauropods that grew more than 150 feet and a life-sized 60-foot-long Mamenchisaurus. Also featured is the beloved Brontosaurus. 'It's exciting to host the biggest dinosaurs ever to walk the Earth right here at the Peoria Riverfront Museum,' said Renae Kerrigan, the museum's science curator. ''The World's Largest Dinosaurs' exhibition gives super-sized insight into why sauropods got so big, had such long necks, and survived for millions of years.' Visitors will be able to learn about sauropods behaviors, biology and how they thrived for about 140 million years. More information is available at the Peoria Riverfront Museum's website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Peoria Riverfront Museum hosts its first ever car show as an exhibit send-off
PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — The Peoria Riverfront Museum is saying goodbye to its custom car exhibit in style. Sunday was the last day of 'Built: American Custom Car Culture' at the museum. Vintage cars, muscle cars and even a Batmobile lined Southwest Water Street, showcasing some of the coolest rides in central Illinois. Everley Davis with the riverfront museum said it's the perfect send-off for the exhibit. 'What we wanted to do for the last day was to celebrate a piece of that car culture, which is car shows. We have a whole section out here with the slow pokes and their cars, and they were the first to produce a national car show and then just fill the rest of the space with amazing builds from our community,' said Davis. The next exhibit taking the space will be the world's largest dinosaur from the American Museum of Natural History. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Holocaust child survivor to speak at Peoria's Yom HaShoah event
PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — For the first time, an Illinois woman will speak publicly about her experiences as a child survivor of the Holocaust. The woman, Renee Adelman Grobart, will speak at this year's annual Yom HaShoah event where one organizer encourages all of us to take a good look at what is happening. 'When we talked about 'Never Again,' we talked about demonizing of other people, the taking away of their rights and making them stateless and deporting. The camps were in Poland, They weren't in Germany. we saw during the Holocaust was groups of people blamed for all the social and economic ills that were happening in Germany,' said Sue Katz, one of the organizing committee members. This year's event, which is sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Peoria, will begin at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Peoria Riverfront Museum, 222 SW Washington St. Admission is free and the event is open to the public but people are asked to preregister for the event through this website. Yom HaShoah is Hebrew for 'Holocaust Remembrance Day,' and this year's event features Renee Adelman Grobart, who had to flee her native Poland when the Nazis invaded. She and her mother went east to flee the Germans while her father was away touring with a Yiddish Theatre group. Where others endured life in the concentration camps, Grobart and her family were loaded onto train cars to transport deeper into Russia away from the fighting. They wound up in Uzbekistan where the family — her father met up with them — lived through hardship, horrific living conditions and the miracle of the three of them surviving until the end of the war, In addition, the winners of the White Rose Society essay contest will be announced. Beyond the message of the individual story, Katz said it's important to go as those who lived through the Holocaust are dwindling. It's important, she said, to bear witness to what these people went through and to be able to rebut those who claim the mass killings never happened. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Classic Disney movies to be celebrated this spring at Peoria Riverfront Museum
PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — Two classic Disney movies will celebrated this spring at the Peoria Riverfront Museum — 'Cinderella' and 'Peter Pan.' The exhibit, 'Cinderella and Peter Pan: The Classic Disney Collection of Steve Spain,' opens Saturday, March 15 and highlights a rare selection of 30 key-matched backgrounds and cels, watercolors, porcelains, and sketches, the museum says. New museum exhibit to feature one-of-a-kind cars The exhibition includes a career-spanning selection of classic Walt Disney ephemera and a newly acquired work from 'Brave Little Tailor' (1938), recently added to the Steve Spain Collection. 'It offers a compelling behind-the-scenes look at the two films and provides insights into their conception and production,' the museum further states. Both movies were made in the early 1950s and are among the most loved films produced by the Walt Disney Company. John Morris, the museum's president and CEO, said, 'with the help of the extraordinary collection of Steve Spain, the Peoria Riverfront Museum has become one of the great museums in the nation for celebrating the creative genius of the Illinois-born Walt Disney, particularly from the classic era.' Additionally, Melody Konrad, a museum spokeswoman, said the exhibit will last through May and coincide with the museum's annual Disney Fest. utilizing the largest film society screen in the nation. The event has attracted personalities, such as Disney author J.B. Kaufman, documentarian Ted Thomas, the son of Disney animator Frank Thomas, and writer, producer and director Jeffrey Sherman, the son of Robert B. Sherman and nephew of Richard M. Sherman, the legendary Sherman Brothers Disney songwriting duo, the Award-winning Disney author Mindy Johnson returns to the museum later this spring for a special presentation. The museum plans to host community favorites such as Disney Trivia, Dinner and a Movie, a speaker series, and exhibit is sponsored by Visionary Society, Friends of Art, IL Arts Council. Visit for more information. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
