Griffin Museum of Science and Industry

The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, long known as the Museum of Science and Industry, sits in Hyde Park at 5700 S DuSable Lake Shore Dr, on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. It occupies the former Palace of Fine Arts from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, a large neoclassical building beside Jackson Park and the lakefront. It is described as the largest science museum in the Western Hemisphere, with hundreds of exhibits across several floors. Highlights include the captured German submarine U-505, displayed in an underground gallery, and the Coal Mine exhibit, which takes visitors down a simulated shaft by cage elevator. The Yesterday's Main Street and Science Storms galleries are other well-known areas, and a large walk-through human heart exhibit shows how blood moves through the body. The museum also hosts rotating special exhibits and an Omnimax-style dome theater. Visitors typically need four to five hours to see the main galleries, and a full day if adding special exhibits and the U-505 tour. Tickets for U-505, the Coal Mine and special exhibits are sold separately from general admission. The museum is busiest on school-day mornings during field trip season and on weekends, and quieter on weekday afternoons and in off-season weeks. For photographs, the main hall with its columns and the view of the U-505 from the gallery floor are popular, and the lakefront outside the building is a pleasant walk. The museum is reached by Metra Electric to 55th-56th-57th Street followed by a roughly 10-minute walk, or by CTA bus 6 from the Loop.