Residents of the Boston area are spending a lot more time at home due to the novel coronavirus pandemic that has led to not only limits on how many people can gather at one time and where, but to the closure of myriad cultural institutions.
But many of these same institutions—museums, parks, performing arts centers, libraries, and more—offer virtual peeks into their exhibits, collections, and other offerings. Some even have snazzy videos that really take you inside. And all of this from the (relative) comfort of your own home.
Below is a running list of cultural institutions in Greater Boston offering online experiences of their in-house wares, including educational material.
Museums
Harvard’s science and cultural museums have virtual exhibits and video online. These include the Harvard Museum of Natural History, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, the Harvard Semitic Museum, and the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments. The natural history museum is running a caption contest for its animal portraits too.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum offers virtual tours of some of its collection. Perhaps the coolest? An exploration of the infamous 1990 heist of several pieces of the Boston institution’s choicest artwork.
The Museum of African American History in Boston has exhibits online as well as video presentations.
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum has interactive exhibits online. It also offers a free iPhone app for kids.
Nonprofit heritage organization Historic New England’s Eustis Estate in Milton offers an online tour, including video, of the 1878 mansion’s ornate Aesthetic Movement interiors as well as one of its landscape, which is adjacent to the Blue Hills Reservation.
Historic New England also has online tours for the Gropius House in Lincoln, where Bauhaus school founder Walter Gropius lived. These tours include 8mm video of Gropius and his family at home. Like the Eustis Estate, the Gropius House is closed for live tours due to coronavirus.
The Lexington Historical Society has virtual tours of its Buckman Tavern (many of the minutemen gathered here on April 19, 1775 to await the redcoats) and its Hancock-Clarke House (a childhood home of John Hancock). The organization also plans to introduce a tour of its Munroe House soon .
Libraries
The Minuteman Library Network, which includes public libraries in Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline, and Newton, are closed until at least March 27. But library card holders can access the network’s vast online resources for free.
The Boston Public Library, including all of its branches, is closed indefinitely. But library card holders can access its online resource for free, including subscriptions and streaming video and audiobooks.
Bonuses
The New England Aquarium is offering regularly scheduled live presentations, including via Facebook Live every Friday, while it’s closed due to coronavirus. There’s also an easily accessible archive of past performances.
Not necessarily a physical institution, the Digital Commonwealth is consortium of libraries, museums, archives, and historical societies from across Massachusetts. It’s plethora of exhibits and collections is available online. It’s also a good clearinghouse for finding material from different places.
This is more of a sonic tour from another non-physical institution. WCRB (99.5 FM), Boston’s publicly supported classical music station, will broadcast recorded Boston Symphony Orchestra performances from Symphony Hall every night at 8 p.m., Monday through Saturday, starting March 23. Symphony Hall itself is closed due to coronavirus.
The 54th Regiment Memorial in Boston Common has an app for iPhone and Android that gives users an augmented-reality tour of (and the backstory to) the monument to the first African-American fighting force in the Civil War. The AR experience—pictured at top—is also available through a Hoverlay channel.
The U.S.S. Constitution in Boston Harbor is offering a live virtual tour every day at 1 p.m. on Facebook. The world’s oldest commissioned battleship is closed indefinitely to physical visits.