Frequently Asked Questions
Call the museum at 617-724-8009 or email mghhistory@partners.org.
The museum is open year-round Tuesday through Friday from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, and Saturdays April through October. It is closed on Mondays, weekends November through March and the following holidays:
• New Year’s Day
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
• Presidents’ Day
• Memorial Day
• Juneteenth
• Independence Day
• Labor Day
• Columbus Day
• Thanksgiving
• Christmas
No. The museum is free and open to the public.
The museum is located at 2 North Grove Street in Boston, on the Massachusetts General Hospital main campus.
The Ether Dome, site of the first successful public surgery using ether as an anesthetic, is down the street from the museum. Located in the Bulfinch Building, this surgical amphitheater is often used for meetings. To find out when the Dome is not in use, call the museum at 617 724 8009 during its open hours. For a virtual tour of the Dome and the rest of the Bulfinch Building, click here.
Visitors are strongly encouraged to take public transportation. The museum is a short walk from the Charles/MGH Station on the MBTA Red Line.
The museum is designed to be self-guided, but docents are often on hand to welcome visitors and answer questions. Leaders of groups of ten or more must contact us to schedule their visit. For more information, visit the Groups page.
The museum’s subject matter is appropriate for eighth grade and up. If you are an educator interested in bringing students to the museum, please contact us to schedule your visit. For more information, visit the Groups page.
Yes, the museum is fully accessible for people in wheelchairs. Learn about accessibility at MGH.
Yes, photography is allowed throughout the building.
There are several MGH cafeterias and cafés located throughout the hospital. In addition, there are several restaurants, both sit-down and counter service, on Cambridge Street and the surrounding neighborhoods.
Yes. For more information, contact Michelle Marcella at 617-724-2755 or mmarcella@mgh.harvard.edu. For more information, visit the Rentals page.
Yes. The museum is recruiting new volunteer docents to help meet the growing demand for history tours, technology demonstrations and school programs. Volunteers welcome visitors in the museum, lead tours of the historical highlights of Mass General’s campus, including the Ether Dome, and answer questions about the hospital’s history. For more detail, write to mghhistory@partners.org.
The museum is grateful to those who wish to offer support. To make a monetary gift, contact the Mass General Development Office https://giving.massgeneral.org/. If you have artifacts or historical documents that might be of interest to the MGH Archives and Special Collections, email museum director Sarah Alger at salger@mgh.harvard.edu.
The museum is part of MGH, which is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. Therefore, all donations to the museum via MGH are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by law.
The Archives and Special Collections is operated under the museum. For archival inquiries, please email mghhistory@partners.org.
The Boston-based architectural firm Leers Weinzapfel Associates designed the museum, which won a 2012 Preservation Achievement Award from the Boston Preservation Alliance. The annual award “honors outstanding achievements in historic preservation and compatible new construction in Boston.”
The museum is made of copper and glass. The upper stories are faced with copper, one of the world’s oldest architectural materials. The copper has not been treated and will slowly oxidize over time to attain a green finish.