The National Pinball Museum is coming to Georgetown. Silverman, its curator, is setting up his brainchild in the shops at Georgetown Park, on the corner of M Street and Wisconsin Avenue. He expects the museum to be open Thursday through Sunday, starting in September.
How many pinball machines do you have?
Currently I have just under 900. I just got four today.
How did you get so many?
I have this genie lamp and I rub it, and pinball machines appear. How did I get so many? I bought them. I collected them. I started playing pinball when I was four.
What’s so great about pinball?
Pinball is great in different reasons for different people. For me, it’s an art form that you can play. It’s a pop art culture that tells the history of our country through the artwork and through the themes. It [shows] the development of electronics — from a ball that just rolled up a piece of wood to a complex computer generated machine.
How good are you at playing pinball?
Well, I would say I’m average. … I’ve lost to some extent the ability to play. As you become older your reflexes are not as good.
What’s the museum going to be like?
It is not an arcade. There will be a room that can play like an arcade. … We’re going to have a library, a theater, a permanent show that will be the history of pinball that you actually physically walk through. … We’ll have a teaching area where we’ll have classes to teach the different crafts necessary to build a pinball machine — woodworking, airbrushing, painting, stenciling, graphics.
How is the museum being funded?
Right now? Me. I’m working on donations and grants, but right now it’s been me. We need funding. We are poor. … I don’t want this museum to be mine; I want it to be the public’s.
— Liz Essley
