Driving out of LA on the I-10 and heading east toward the desert environs of Joshua Tree, it’s easy to miss the collection of banal warehouses near the base of the San Jacinto Mountains in Banning, California. But they contained a rare treasure uncoveyed by their supply-chain appearances: this was the home of the Museum of Pinball (http://www.museumofpinball.org/). Curating one of the largest collections ever assembled of pinball machines from all eras, along with a robust collection of video game arcade cabinets, the museum was the de facto Library of Congress of arcade exhibition. For me and my partner, the museum got us in touch with the singular pleasures of interacting with pinball’s electro-mechanical delights–a familiar yet different feel from its digital gaming offspring and successor. It also sparked for me a research paper into one of the most curious and controversial pinball machines (in pinhead circles) ever mass produced: Stern’s Orbitor 1 (1982).
Alas, we cannot have nice (or even necessary) things. The Museum of Pinball is now tragically and officially gone–its curatorial triumph dissolved and scattered to the winds, undone by Covid’s financial hit and an unsuccessful bid to move to Palm Springs. You can read all about it in the New York Times.
I hope someday to post my own photos of the Museum of Pinball in “Field Trips” on this site. But for now, suffice to say this is a terrible, terrible blow for games archiving, and a loss for cultural preservation, education… and just plain fun. The Museum of Pinball will be missed.