DATE: Wednesday, July 16, 1997              TAG: 9707160457

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:   50 lines

MUSEUM PLANS TO LET CHILDREN ``MOON WALK'' OVER HIGH STREET

A space-age exhibit called ``Moon Walk'' will be installed in the Children's Museum atrium in a space many hoped would house an old-fashioned carousel.

``Moon Walk,'' one of the conceptual designs approved at a special meeting of the city's Museum and Fine Arts Commission, lets children experience weightlessness while they are suspended on elastic cords. The cords will hang from the arms of a tall structure designed as an imaginary moon vehicle.

Jay Paulos, the exhibit designer, said the installation will be the only one of its kind in a museum anywhere.

Monday, Paulos presented preliminary designs of 30 interactive exhibits approved for the second floor of the Children's Museum of Virginia.

The new section is scheduled to open next summer.

City Council members will hear of proposed exhibits for the expanded museum at a council work session at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

The museum atrium juts out over High Street from the second floor and was conceived as a place for a small carousel.

The commission voted to use the space for a galactic mobile and the ``Moon Walk'' exhibit instead.

Part of the second floor will house the Lancaster collection of trains and antique toys, valued at $1 million.

It was collected by the late A.J. ``Junie'' Lancaster. He and his wife, Millie, gave it to the Children's Museum prior to his death last year.

The collection, now housed at Mike's Trainland in Suffolk, contains model and toy trains as well as antique toys.

Lancaster started the ``Winter Wonderland'' at Coleman's Nursery, a Christmas display that attracts thousands of visitors to Churchland annually.

``The Lancaster exhibit will be more than a static display,'' Paulos said. ``There will be four working layouts with 25 to 30 trains on the platform and about 10 of them working at a time.''

The exhibits are subject to change, Betty Burnell, director of the city's museums, told the board.

``The exhibits have gone through an evolution and will continue to evolve,'' she said. ``These are conceptual presentations.''

Burnell said current estimates for completing the second floor are between $3.5 million and $4 million. The Museum Foundation has agreed to raise $1.5 million. ILLUSTRATION: Drawing

A sketch of a ``Moon Walk'' exhibit slated for the Children's Museum

of Virginia shows how children will be able to experience

weightlessness.

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