The Museum of Jurassic Technology — Attraction in Los Angeles

I was here the day after Thanksgiving in the afternoon with my sibling-in-laws and spouse. It seemed really busy at the time and I don't think the staff is well suited for the amount of people that were there because of the holidays. I'm not sure if this museum was really up my alley, but there were certainly a lot of interesting things to look at.

I'm leaving a 1-star review because the staff was confoundingly standoffish while also rude. I didn't much appreciate being yelled at for getting lost and asking directions, only to get yelled at for finding the bathroom at all. And I didn't really appreciate being yelled at and made to feel uncomfortable for requesting tea.

When we walked up the stairs into the tearoom, there were two ladies and a dog sitting by the kitchen area. At the time i was not aware that tea and cookies were being served, I am not sure if there are specific times that they brew it, to be honest I was afraid to ask because the women sitting by the kitchen didn't seem to work there and didn't offer us any information until they got sick of us wandering around aimlessly trying to find another display to look at. I asked if I could pet the dog as the women busied themselves with making more tea, which they did begrudgingly and with much attitude and annoyance, and I was scolded FOR ASKING. A few people came up after and immediately pet the dog with no consequence or scolding. I got my tea, my spouse refused after the rude interaction, and we took a stroll through the garden.

We needed the restroom, but the one upstairs was occupied, so we went all the way back down to the first floor to try and find the bathroom there. It was hard to track down any employees and when we finally did, he gave us vague and dimissive directions. We had to ask another employee who rolled her eyes and pointed directly behind us. My spouse opened the door, thinking it was a multiple stall situation, but it turns out that the lady in there got confused and didnt lock the outer door. (There's an ante chamber inside that housed just the toilet with a lockable door, then an outer chamber with just a sink.) The woman inside was washing her hands and not at all startled to see the door open. My spouse walked past her and into the toilet room and she left right after. I had planned to pop in and fix my lipstick really quick while I waited, but the employee who rolled her eyes at me grabbed my shoulder to pull me away from the door and said, "Bathrooms should only be for one person at a time." I mean, I get that, but I kind of assumed it was just an all genders bathroom where I had to wait for the stall to open up inside, or you know, maybe I'm dumb and I got confused, that's still no way to talk to a person.

After that, the whole museum was soured to me. Other than the staff, there were a few other flaws, narrow halls, lack of explaination for a lot of the displays, lack of signage for restrooms, not much direction. Overall, those things could have been ignored if the staff was on their game that day. Really sucks that...

I've gone tons of times and will keep coming back. Absolutely unique oddities and curiosity museum with beautiful, heartfelt, and charming exhibitions. Wonderful Staff. This is one of my favorite spots in all of LA and always worth a visit BUT!! A lot of this Museum is inaccessible to wheelchairs, walkers, and people with visual imparements. If you need a mobility aid I have no idea how you would even maneuvere this museum let alone upstairs.

With a name like Jurassic Technology I expected a museum of atomatons and archaic animatronics but that's not the case at all.

Flower Radiography, Microscopic sculptures so small they reside in a needle and you need a microscope to view, holograms as a feature to their exhibits, audio story telling and small movies, a memoriam to all of the dogs that had went to space, a whole back area dedicated to wives tales and superstition, gorgeous interior design and architecture. Beautiful ambience. It's also the home to some living dogs and birds.

-It is stuffy in there. It's an older building so the air circulation isn't fantastic but they do have a rooftop garden if you need a breather. -Some rooms are very dark, which does add to the experience but has the capacity to put people on edge and with that and the close tight space and unfamiliarity/weirdness this can be unintentionally scary to some people.

-Sometimes I feel like some of the exhibits are there just for oddities sake, as of the time I'm writing this the Museum gives the impression that they want to keep their collection and what they're about shrouded in mystery and full of surprises which is really cool and auteur, but it can leave a visitor under prepared for what they're getting into. Especially since no photography, phones, or video is allowed to be out. Like for example they have a picture of dog headed Saint Christopher, but (at the time I went) no plaque to tell us who he is or the context for why he would have a dog head. If I already didn't know that was Chris I would have nothing to back that memory of the photo on other than "what is that?" And I would have no way of looking into it meaningfully since I couldn't reverse image search with a photo I don't have, or if I didn't understand a catholic verbage I would just be at a loss of how to even look into that picture. I want more thorough explanations and in depth dissections of all of the little things they have there not just in the major rooms.

Any museum no matter where you go has to abide by the rules to preserve and to educate. This does its job very well I just love it so much I wish I had more. It's a curiosity and oddities museum that makes me curious but it doesn't completely satisfy it.

LA will be LA so you'll need to find public parking but I could spend hours here and I wish so bad that I could just take pictures and record in there. And really cute hospitality with the complimentary cup of tea...

In a closet size room called The Misch/Webster Gallery in a strange little place called The Museum of Jurassic Technology there are 33 letters presented as part of an exhibition entitled “No One May Ever Have the Same Knowledge Again: Letters to the Mount Wilson Observatory”.  The entire collection of letters allegedly sent to the Observatory between 1915 and 1935 are available through the Museum as a self-published book, also titled “No One May Ever Have the Same Knowledge Again”.  This publication was the first I purchased from the Museum after I became interested in it and its curator, David Wilson.  These two inseparable entities were suggested to me as point of interest at a slide presentation I gave tracing a semi-fictional history of photography.  But it was not until I found a Museum of Jurassic Technology T-shirt in my dresser that I actually started doing any research.

I had never before registered the text on the shirt, although I’m sure I’d worn it.  The shirt had been one of my brothers.  I’d received in a giant box in the mail after his death in 2006.  At first, I was confused as to what I should do with a giant box full of a dead person’s t-shirts.  The box sat in a state of limbo in a corner in my bedroom.  But working in film left me little time to do laundry so, one by one, the shirts snuck into my wardrobe until the box was empty.

Seeing the Museum emblem staring back at me from my dresser and realizing the connection, I went on-line and watched an unreliable 35-minute documentary Inhaling the Spore, produced by the Museum in 2004 and I loved it.  The documentary outlines the on-going exhibits in Museum including the Deprong Mori of the Tripiscum Pleateaua, a species of bat that can fly through solid objects, Geoffrey Sonnabend's geometry heavy memory theory and Mrs. Alice Williams to the Mount Wilson Observatory. Mrs. Williams letter was one of the more difficult points in the video for me to wrap my head around so I ordered the book.  It provided no additional information or insight into the creation of the exhibition, just many more strange letters. While reading, I found myself both alternately hoping these documents were authentic and hoping they were fabricated.  I adore the idea of strange people all over the world sending their extraordinary ideas to these famous astronomers, trying to get in their two cents, at a time when Science was changing so drastically.  But, I find the image of Wilson conceiving and fabricating it all wonderful too.  Like all things David Wilson, I’ll never be sure. His life and the Museum are an inseparable interweave of truth and fiction.  All the truths seem fictional.  All the fictions point, somehow humbly, to larger philosophical truths.  Someday, when I grow-up I want to be just like...