Pennsylvania Trolley Museum cuts ribbon on new building
The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum Welcome and Education Center will open to the public Friday.
The new Welcome and Education Center at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum has exhibits and artifacts that explore the history of trolley cars in the United States.
Trolley cars outside the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum’s Welcome and Education Center
The new Pennsylvania Trolley Museum Welcome and Education Center has exhibits on the history of trolleys.
Ray Betler, who chaired the capital campaign to build the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum's Welcome and Education Center, cuts the ribbon outside the facility Thursday along with, from left, state Rep. Jason Ortitay, Washington County commissioners Larry Maggi and Diana Irey Vaughan and state Sen. Camera Bartolotta.
To Ed Morascyzk, the opening of the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum’s new Welcome and Education Center is a big deal.
How big a deal?
“It’s the equivalent of winning the World Series, the Super Bowl and the Stanley Cup,” according to Morascyzk, a Washington attorney and president of the museum’s board of trustees.
Given the years of planning, fundraising and construction, the opening of the center has probably been about as hotly anticipated as a sports championship. On Thursday morning, the ribbon was cut at the 21,000-square-foot facility, just down the road from the museum’s longtime home off North Main Street outside Washington. It will open to the public on Friday.
The completion of the center, which contains an auditorium, classroom space, interactive exhibits, offices and a gift shop, comes two years after ground was broken for it. It’s one of the final steps in the museum’s development of its east campus, which also has a family play area and gazebo, a restored trolley station that was once in Wexford, and a brick-paved street called Volunteer Boulevard.
Scott Becker, the museum’s executive director and CEO, called it “a stunning gateway to the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum.”
He added, “We’re not a dinosaur museum here. We have an important story to tell. We’re not your grandfather’s trolley museum.”
The path to the center’s opening was not always smooth, according to Ray Betler, who led the capital campaign to build it. The COVID-19 pandemic caused delays, and then costs of material and labor went up. But the museum supporters who were part of the campaign “accepted the challenge,” he said.
“We have really been blessed,” Betler added.
The new center will be available to rent for private and corporate events, and its tourism impact will add $10 million to the region’s economy, according to the Pennsylvania Economy League of Greater Pittsburgh.
The museum itself has been around for almost 70 years, having first opened its doors in February 1954. Its collection now includes 52 trolley cars from throughout the region, along with the New Orleans streetcar named Desire.