Puppet collection finds new home at Brooklyn College

From the miniature, to the gigantic.

As librarian of the Puppet Museum, Theresa Linnihan oversees over 100 puppets, some as tall as 20 feet, created by the Brooklyn- and Boston-based Puppeteers Coop for festivities like the Park Slope Halloween Parade.

The museum previously found a home in Grand Army Plaza for four years, inside the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch.

“It was a mysterious place,” said Linnihan, who's participating in the Toy Theater Festival at St. Ann's Warehouse next month. “People never knew you could go inside.”

Of course, those who did would be privy to puppet shows and parade-style puppets, taken out for parades and performances, as well as loaned to filmmakers, birthday parties and even protests.

With the arch leaking, the museum was forced to leave two years ago, setting up shop ever since at Brooklyn College, in the Arts Lab at Roosevelt House.

“It’s been more difficult to get the word out that the library is there,” said Linnihan.

Linnihan would love to go back to the arch — the last she heard it would take about $300,000 to repair the roof — but is grateful to have a home in Brooklyn still.

“What would you do with 100 large puppets?” said Linnihan. “There’s no room under the bed.”

The Puppet Museum at Brooklyn College [2900 Bedford Ave. at Campus Road in Midwood, (718) 853-7350]. By appointment only.

Photo by Ted Levin