National Museum of Play (formally Strong Museum)

The National Museum of Play, formerly Strong National Museum of Play, is part of The Strong in Rochester. Established in 1969 and based initially on the personal collection of Rochester, NY native Margaret Woodbury Strong, the museum opened to the public in 1982. Since then it has refined and increased its collections (hundreds of thousands of items), and expanded twice, in 1997 and 2006.
The museum is now one of five Play Partners of The Strong, which is also home to the National Toy Hall of Fame, the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, and the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, and produces the American Journal of Play.

Open Mon-Thu 10am-5pm; Fri-Sat 10am-8pm; Sun 12pm-5pm

2 new machines 5/15

Machine 3 all have 'The Strong museumofplay.com' on them. located in the food court. Designs are:
1) Teddy Bear,
2) Steam engine,
3) Clownfish,
4) Carousel Horse.

Machine 4 all have 'The Strong museumofplay.com' on them. located in the food court. Designs are:
1) Robot,
2) Knight, horse chess piece,
3) Dino head and neck,
4) Butterflies.

Machine 5:
1) Train,
2) Girl doll,
3) Butterfly,
4) Game machime

Retired Machines and Designs:

Retired 1: 1) 'Rambow Reef, Museum of Play', Clownfish, 2) 'Dancing Wings Butterfly Gardens', Turtle, 3) 'Dancing Wings Butterfly Gardens', Butterflies, 4) 'Dancing Wings Butterfly Gardens', bird.
Retired 2: 1) 'Dancing Wings Butterfly Gardens',Butterfly, 2) 'National Museum of Play', Teddybear, 3) 'National Museum of Play', Steam Engine, 4) 'National Museum of Play', Carousel horse.
Other Retired designs: 1) 'National Toy Hall of Fame', toy bear 2) 'Strong National Museum of Play, Rochester, NY', word logo. 3) Strong Museum, Rochester, NY', Carousel Horse.

5/15: Two new Pennyman machines were installed here. Machines 1 and 2 are now retired.

5/28/2023 - Machines 3 & 4 are gone. br> Machine 5 is now located across from Bill Gray's. 4 designs, $1 each. Takes bills or you can use a credit card to get all 4 designs. It charges your card $4 even if you just want one coin so get all 4.
Designs are pretty boring.

8/23/2026 - There is only one machine left (machine 5). It is at the entrance to the food court, across from the diner building. You have to pay admission to reach this point, It is using preloaded zinc blanks ($1 each, currency or credit card), and rolling slightly short. If you visit the video game section upstairs, you can also buy arcade tokens marked for the museum (I found 3 machines). Discounted parking in the adjacent parking structure, or some on-street meter parking available. jnm