{"id":40487,"date":"2025-11-15T12:45:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T12:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/40487\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T12:45:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T12:45:06","slug":"editors-note-rochester-thrives-on-playing-around","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/40487\/","title":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: Rochester thrives on playing around"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"docs-internal-guid-c9b71293-7fff-0539-e996-74b954aa8843\">Micron\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.syracuse.com\/micron\/2025\/11\/micron-chip-factories-in-upstate-ny-delayed-by-two-to-three-years-company-says.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">delayed opening of its first two chipmaking factories<\/a> outside Syracuse by two to three years was a disappointment for Central New York, where job creation and economic development are top priorities. Fortunately, there\u2019s one local job creator that\u2019s thriving in downtown Rochester: The Strong National Museum of Play. Having completed a $75 million expansion in 2023, this nerdy, unique curator of all things fun sits in a revitalized \u201cNeighborhood of Play\u201d that includes a new hotel, parking garage and market-rate housing.<\/p>\n<p>Strong has since brought in $160 million in added tourism revenue, plus more than 120 new jobs into the region, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nystia.org\/resources\/governor-hochul-celebrates-the-completion-of-the-strong-national-museum-of-plays-75-million-expansion-project-in-downtown-rochester\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">according to a press release<\/a> from Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s office. Nearly 1 million visitors are expected by 2026, up from a high of 600,000 reported before the COVID-19 pandemic. Named after Rochester native Margaret Woodbury Strong, who first allowed visitors to her private doll and dollhouse collection in 1969 (the official museum opened in 1982), the collection today reflects no limits to how people play. \u201cWe\u2019re combining the artifacts and the interpretation, right? What are the things? What does the play mean? What\u2019s the history of it, with opportunities to actually play,\u201d Jeremy Saucier, Strong\u2019s assistant vice president for interpretation and electronic games, told City &amp; State on an exclusive museum tour that included the basement \u2013 a space that looks like the warehouse of forgotten artifacts in the final scene of \u201cRaiders of the Lost Ark.\u201d Some are local, including pinball machines made on Long Island and ColecoVision video games made in New Amsterdam, both long gone, but not forgotten in a collection bringing new life to the heart of Rochester.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Micron\u2019s delayed opening of its first two chipmaking factories outside Syracuse by two to three years was a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1349,6492,9,11,10,49,299],"class_list":{"0":"post-40487","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-arts-culture","9":"tag-editors-note","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-news","13":"tag-new-york-state","14":"tag-opinion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}