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After months of being closed, museums in region begin the process of reopening

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The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum will reopen to visitors on July 2.

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The Almanac

The Meadowcroft Rockshelter opened to the public in 2002.

Claude Monet’s haunting “Waterloo Bridge” adorns a wall in the Scaife Galleries at the Carnegie Museum of Art, and it has gone unseen in the last three months, except by a handful of museum employees that have continued to work in the building.

The same goes for Vincent Van Gogh’s “Wheat Fields After the Rain,” Paul Gauguin’s “Landscape With Three Figures,” Edward Hopper’s “Sailing,” and all the other paintings, sculptures and prints in the museum’s collection that are on display. They have, of course, been behind locked doors as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Lockdown measures across the United States and around the world have been particularly brutal for museums, which need paid admissions to keep budgets in the black and employees on the payroll.

That will change, though, on June 26, when the art museum and the three other museums in the Carnegie Museums system open their doors for the first time since March 14 for members only. On June 29, an opening for the public at large will follow.

The Carnegie Museums will be at the forefront of a pack of museums that will be reopening in the lead-up to the long Fourth of July weekend, including the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum outside Washington and the Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village outside Avella.

Steven Knapp, president and CEO of Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, said in a news release that the museum personnel “have been preparing for this day with a single-minded focus: the safety and well-being of our staff and our visitors. That will continue to drive everything we do.”

Knapp also stated that the four museums, which also include the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the Carnegie Science Center and the Andy Warhol Museum, “are ideal places to be inspired and uplifted by the wonders of art and science while also practicing social distancing.”

In fact, the museums will try to ensure that patrons stay socially distant from one another by limiting the number of visitors to 25% of building capacity at any one time. Visitors will come in to the building with timed tickets and be required to wear masks. High-traffic areas will have marked foot-traffic patterns and hands-on exhibits will be modified.

On July 1, two days after the Carnegie Museums reopen to all visitors, all the facilities operated by the Senator John Heinz History Center will do the same, and that includes Meadowcroft, along with the Fort Pitt Museum and the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum. All History Center museums will be operating at 50% capacity, and high-touch areas will be frequently cleaned. New hand sanitization areas have been added.

When the History Center reopens, it will be debuting the exhibit, “Smithsonian’s Portraits of Pittsburgh: Works From the National Portrait Gallery.” It will feature original sketches, prints, paintings and photographs showcasing individuals with ties to the region like Martha Graham, Gene Kelly and Gertrude Stein. It is one of the largest loans ever shared by the National Portrait Gallery.

On July 2, the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in Arden will reopen. Hours of operation will be 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday through Sunday, with timed ticketing through the museum’s website being encouraged, according to Scott Becker, the museum’s executive director. Like the History Center facilities, it will be operating at 50% capacity.

Some museums in the region are taking a slower approach to reopening. No date has yet been set for the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and its accompanying MuseumLab. A Facebook post from the museum last week stated, “Due to the requirements of operating under the green phase and their impact on the creative, hands-on learning experiences that are such a hallmark of the museum, we will not be opening for general public visits, programs, events or birthdays parties at this time.”

Meanwhile, the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg has set a tentative reopening date of Aug. 5, according to an email message sent last week by Anne Kraybill, the museum’s director and CEO.

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