Watching History Unfold at the Museum of Science and Industry

Most Chicagoans still call it the Museum of Science and Industry, or just MSI, but its official name is now the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry. Financier Ken Griffin gave $125 million in 2019, the largest gift in the museum's history, and the new name took effect on May 19, 2024. The website moved to griffinmsi.org too, though the old msichicago.org address still turns up in searches.

The building is older than the museum. It was the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, designed by Charles B. Atwood and built to last longer than the fair's other buildings. After the fair it housed the collection that became the Field Museum, and it sat empty after the Field moved north in 1920. Sears president Julius Rosenwald put up the money to turn it into a science museum modeled on Munich's Deutsches Museum, and it opened in 1933, during the Century of Progress fair. For its first five decades, general admission was free. Today there are more than 2,000 exhibits in 75 major halls, and you can't see them all in a day.

What's inside

The museum is about how things work and who built them. You can go aboard the U-505, a German submarine captured in 1944, and ride a mine train into the Coal Mine, which has been here since the museum opened. There's a 3,500-square-foot model railroad, a United Airlines Boeing 727 you can walk through, and the Pioneer Zephyr, the silver streamliner that ran from Denver to Chicago in just over 13 hours in 1934. The Henry Crown Space Center has the Apollo 8 command module and a SpaceX Dragon capsule that flew two cargo missions to the International Space Station.

The baby chicks are still here too. The old Genetics exhibit closed for good, and the chick hatchery moved to Farm Tech, where you can still watch chicks peck their way out of their shells. The "get inside the internet" exhibit from when this page was first written is long gone.

>> more on the best exhibits at the Museum of Science and Industry

Tickets

General admission is $25.95 for adults. It covers most of the permanent exhibits, but not the things people most want to do. The Coal Mine tour costs $12 for adults and $9 for kids 3 to 11, and the U-505 On-Board Tour costs $18 and $14, according to the museum's ticket page. Both have timed entry and limited space, so book them online when you buy admission. Giant Dome Theater films and special exhibitions cost extra too. There's no processing fee for buying online.

A lot of visitors can pay less, or nothing.

• Chicago residents get $9 off adult admission and $5 off for kids.
• Illinois residents get free general admission on a long list of Illinois Free Days. Tours still cost extra on those days. See our free museum days page.
• US active-duty military and veterans, Chicago firefighters and police officers, and Illinois pre-K to 12th-grade teachers get free general admission.
• Anyone with an EBT or WIC card, from any state, gets free general admission for up to two adults and six kids through Museums for All.
• Members of science centers in the ASTC network that are more than 90 miles away get free general admission for up to two adults and two kids.
• Chicago CityPASS includes the permanent exhibits and one timed experience, which the museum values at $37.95. Our CityPASS vs. Go City comparison runs the numbers.

Hours

The museum is open every day from 9:30am to 4pm, and it's closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. Hours run later, until 5:30pm, on many days in late November and December, and a few days a year it opens late or closes early for events. Check the hours page before you go. If you want the Coal Mine and the U-505 tour in the same visit, get there at opening. Four o'clock comes fast.

Food

You can bring your own lunch. There are designated eating areas inside, including one outside the Ships Gallery, and when the weather's good you can take it out to the front lawn. The outdoor garden seating by the Henry Crown Space Center closes in late October. Leave the building and come back and they'll rescan your ticket.

>> more on places to eat near the museum

Getting there

The museum is at 5700 S. DuSable Lake Shore Dr., about seven miles south of the Loop in Hyde Park. It isn't on the Museum Campus with the Field Museum and Shedd. The quickest way down is the Metra Electric from Millennium Station to 55th-56th-57th Street, about 15 minutes, and the #10 CTA bus runs from the Magnificent Mile to the front door during the day. The museum garage charges $22 for ticketed visitors.

>> more on getting there from downtown Chicago

Nearby in Hyde Park

Hyde Park is the University of Chicago's neighborhood, and it's worth staying for the afternoon.

• The Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (1155 E. 58th St.) is the old Oriental Institute, renamed in 2023. The galleries cover ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Nubia and Persia. Admission is a suggested $15 for adults and $10 for kids 12 and under. It's open Tuesday to Sunday from 10am, until 8pm on Fridays and 4pm on other days, and closed Mondays.
• Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House (5757 S. Woodlawn Ave.), finished in 1910, is the house the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust calls the consummate expression of his Prairie style. Guided interior tours run Thursday to Monday, and it's a short walk from the Institute.
• The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center (740 E. 56th Pl.), which was called the DuSable Museum of African American History when this page first ran, is in Washington Park, west of the university. It's open Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm.
• The University of Chicago's Smart Museum of Art (5550 S. Greenwood Ave.) is always free and closed Mondays.
• The Obama Presidential Center opened on June 19, 2026, in Jackson Park, the same park the museum sits in. The #10 bus stops at both.

For the rest of the city's museums, see our museums guide.

Photo by Gary Allman