The Grand Rapids Public Museum (GRPM), specifically one of its exhibits, has had a bit of a rough time recently. Although the museum is currently undergoing a massive $50 million expansion, most of its operations have remained largely unaffected. Instead, two freak incidents have necessitated the museum’s closure for extended periods.
Earlier this year, a winter storm caused pipes in The Streets of Old Grand Rapids to burst, resulting in damage to the exhibit and artifacts. Thankfully, all damage was repaired. Today, the museum was closed for a completely different reason, but curiously, the source was also in the first-floor exhibit: potentially unstable drugs. Yes, you read that correctly.
Rudell Drug Store’s Unstable Drugs
The Streets of Old Grand Rapids is a scale remake of 11 different real businesses that operated during the 1890s and features authentic merchandise, including the Rudel Drug Store, which was based in Sault Ste. Marie, before moving to the museum. It features all original fixtures and real medications used during the period.
These drugs are what caused the museum to close after a routine artifact inspection found nitroglycerin in the form of pills and picric acid, both of which are key ingredients in explosives. A GRPM spokesperson told WOODTV that these substances “can degrade and become unstable over time”, so they were removed as a precautionary measure…