Museum's Phase 1A Build Underway

With the holidays behind us, the Phase 1A build is underway. The first week of January, all of the artifacts, photos and artwork were removed from the temporary Global War on Terror and Combat Art galleries.

All of the storage cabinets, tables and chairs from the classroom were moved out into a double wide trailer in the parking lot. This is the temporary classroom/educational offices trailer, taken this summer.

The docent and Marine offices were also packed-up and moved out to another double wide trailer, behind the education trailer, in the parking lot. By the way - - those double wides are pretty nice. They even have shower facilities, which they don't have in the museum and won't have until Phase 2.

I told you about what happened to the offices but what happened to the combat art and the GWOT photos and artifacts?

Three triangular display walls were constructed in Leatherneck gallery, between the HRS-1 and the elevators. Combat photos from Iraq and Afghanistan will be displayed here.

The weapons tower, affectionately referred to as "The Cheese Grater" has been dis-armed and will be disassembled. You could barely see the weapons in it/ on it anyway. In its place, artifact cabinets that had been in the GWOT gallery. Again, these will hold micro artifacts from GWOT.

If you are looking down that back hallway from Legacy Walk toward Leatherneck, the left side will contain Combat Art from Post Vietnam to Present. The right side of the wall will contain the 9-11 images that had been in the GWOT gallery. Nothing has been hung up yet. I also don't have any photos of this hallway as one wall is back, it doesn't photograph very well.

This week, the 8-foot physical construction barrier wall went up. From the top of the wall to the ceiling is a fabric barrier. That was completed today.

This next week, all of the partition walls will be knocked down.

So, it will be NOISY at the museum.

Currently, the construction barrier is dull and boring. It will be sprused up eventually with sneak preview drawings of the new construction as well as combat photos from GWOT.

In addition to the sneak preview drawings, the Model T Ford that was used for Toys-for-Tots will remain as a 'teaser' for what is to come in the World War 1 gallery.

This is what the museum will look like until early spring 2010. The grand opening for the new galleries is planned for March or April of 2010.

They plan on bringing in plans and 3D models so the docents and staff can see what will be in the new gallery space. When I see it, I'll share it with you.

Exciting stuff!