Attractions at Holyoke Heritage State Park

Fun for Kids and Adults

Jul 31, 2008 Martina Robinson

There are fun things to at the State Park in Holyoke, MA. Here's how to do them on the cheap!

The Holyoke Children’s Museum is located in downtown Holyoke, Massachusetts inside the grounds of Holyoke Heritage State Park. Its walking distance from downtown businesses and many city workers come to the park on their lunch break. Its two to three city blocks in circumference. The Park also houses the Holyoke Merry-Go-Round which relocated there in 1993. One ride will cost you one dollar per person or six rides for five dollars. The Volleyball Hall of Fame is also located there as Holyoke is the birthplace of volleyball. One admission price of six dollars per adult will gain you access to both museums which share a building. However, the Volleyball Hall of Fame is not open on Wednesdays when the rest of the park’s attractions are available including the Children’s Museum, the Merry-Go-Round, and the Park’s Visitor Center. However, throughout the rest of the week it keeps similar hours.

The Children’s Museum occupies one floor of the building. It’s not a very expansive or interactive museum. In fact, if you’re in a wheelchair you are unable to participate in any of the activities except the Holyoke canal models where you can send a plastic duck on the route of the canal. Children sometimes have duck races to see whose duck can get to the end of the canal fastest, but the ducks die if you send them over the waterfall which you do your best to avoid by placing your duck in the water at the appropriate angle. There were supposed to be more activities that would have been accessible. For example, there is a golf ball racing game in which you have to build tracks for the golf ball to travel down. However, someone recently stole the golf ball and they haven’t had time to replace it yet. The largest and most popular attraction at the Children’s Museum is a multi-level climbing and sliding wall.

There are also multiple imagination stations where children can pretend to be a variety of people. There is a fake ambulance complete with plastic EMT gear and real sirens. There is a restaurant where children can pretend to be either the customers or staff. Don’t worry – all the ketchup and mustard bottles are empty so there won’t be any food fights. Owing to Holyoke’s Latino heritage, there is even a bodega. The most interesting of these play area, to me, was a mock television studio with a real camera aimed at the news desk. However, the camera didn’t film anything and children don’t actually get to see themselves on air as you would at a better funded museum of this sort. Unfortunately, Holyoke’s status as the poorest city in the entire commonwealth of Massachusetts does not allow them to expand the museum to include features like this.

In the Visitor’s Center, which features the most wheelchair friendly bathroom in the entire park, you can explore Holyoke’s past, present, and future. You can learn about the city’s role in the labor movement and see life through the eyes of the many immigrant communities who at one time resettled in Holyoke from lands as far away as Russia and Puerto Rico. Sometimes, there are special movie showings and events at the Visitor’s Center where they have a projection screen and on any day that the Visitor’s Center is open (Tuesday through Saturday) children can enjoy putting on period clothes from the dress up box.

All in all, Holyoke Heritage State Park is not worth planning a day trip to. However, if you live in the local area and can take mass transit (which cost $1.25 for adults and 60 cents if you have a disability ID) to the park it might be worth it. This is especially true of you can get a free pass from your local library (you need a library card and sometimes a deposit of $10.00 which I refunded when you return the pass) or discount from one of the nearby grocery store chains.

The copyright of the article Attractions at Holyoke Heritage State Park in NE U.S. Travel is owned by Martina Robinson. Permission to republish Attractions at Holyoke Heritage State Park in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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