South Gate Civic Center Museum

The museum’s only open Wednesdays, allegedly. The hours posted on their site are 10 – 4. Found this page, noticed there aren’t any reviews, and a huge geek for museums, I set aside time today to go by and report back.
First off, it was kind of harrowing braving the high amount of 18-​wheeler traffic that goes through there. Trucks in the left lane would suddenly try to turn right into something, nearly causing accidents all over the place. Obviously this isn’t the museum’s problem, and my rating doesn’t reflect overly-​assertive, insane truckers.
No, it’s the fact that it’s impossible to tell how to get into the place, even when it’s supposed to be open. The front has a cool tile mosaic on the wall about the evolution of writing and two doors on either side of it. The one on the left says to use the other door, and the one on the right has a sign that reads «Private Office» and another sign saying to ring the bell. All the other doors on the building either look like they’re for maintenance or have signs on them saying to use the front door.
So I rang the bell, and… nothing.
No one answered. Door was locked. Went by City Hall. Didn’t really want to bother anyone, but the few people I asked about the museum didn’t know what’s going on either. I guess they’re just not open the one day they say they are?
Seemed like the entire lot was permit parking only, and the spots next to the museum aren’t clearly marked (only noticed the sign when I was walking back from city hall). It’s near a police station, so beware.
Will have to go back later whenever it might be open.
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UPDATE, one week later:
Instead of just driving by, we called ahead, and that may have made all the difference. An older gentleman answered the phone, we said we’d like to see the museum, and he said he’d be there, though he’d probably grab some lunch around noon. We pull up and there’s a sign out front that says the museum’s open (it wasn’t out there last week).
So we went through the process of ringing the bell (this time a buzzer sort of went off, unlocking the door) and approached the kindly old man at the window on the left.
«We’re here to see the museum,» Brandon D. declared.
The man had trouble hearing, so Bran repeated.
«Oh, okay!» the guy said cheerfully. He stood up, opened the door on the right, letting us in, and walked us through a set of rooms, packed with donated items.
They had the first and last tires off the line from the now closed Firestone factory, lots of photos, furniture, and antiques. It’s pretty informal, there’s still boxes here and there and it’s not all laid out with plaques or anything.
The man was very nice and informative. He was a little difficult to understand, but we became accustomed to his voice. It was funny when he cursed about the city having to take out this tank that children were using as a playground because some kids fell off and hurt themselves and sued the city over it.
Little known fact, apparently. South Gate was where Amelia Earhart learned to fly. They had an interesting set of articles collected on her teacher, Anita Snook. The city has a rich history in aeronautics apparently since they had a wall display on the different zeppelins and dirigibles and other aircrafts that have flown out of there.
The museum is indeed only open on Wednesdays. Again, I recommend calling ahead.