Downtown’s Mob Museum is—pardon the pun—a big hit. Visitors are flocking to it, driving the need for expansion. “We have a beautiful, historic building … but it’s not the largest building,” says Jonathan Ullman, the museum’s executive director and CEO. “There are limits to how much exhibitry you can put within.”
The solution? Build into the basement. Sometime in the first quarter of 2018, the museum will add several new exhibits including a forensics lab, a firearms training simulator, an expanded retail space, a small café and a Prohibition doubleheader: a working liquor distillery and an elegant speakeasy. It might sound like a play for the Downtown nightlife crowd, but Ullman says the expansion is intended to “fill in other parts of the [museum’s] narrative.” We’ll drink to that.