COSI is making headlines due to layoffs and funding woes, but if you want to reminisce about the museum’s better days, we’ve found a website for you.
Flashback: “The Old COSI” uses old images to recreate the original museum at Memorial Hall, which opened in 1964 and closed in 1999.
- The basement Coal Mine, the presidents, the Street of Yesteryear, even the original Wendy’s across the street — it’s all here in an old-school point-and-click adventure.
- The website also has a timeline of COSI history.
The intrigue: Local resident Eric Upp created the site in 2009 as an Ohio State graduate student. He’s no coding pro, he tells Axios, but the project was a fun way to preserve some fond childhood memories at a time when online photos were scarce.
- He captured many of the images on COSI’s last day, Sept. 5, 1999, when he was 15.
What he’s saying: “I just hoped a few people would enjoy it,” Upp says.
- He quickly heard from lots of nostalgic folks who contributed their memories, too.
The bottom line: “It was a special place,” he says. “When I see the pictures, it still takes me back to being there. I can still picture it. It’s nice that others have had that same reaction.”
💭 Our thought bubble: The retro-HTML website isn’t updated much these days and looks like a time capsule itself — which somehow makes it even more endearing…