The American Museum Of Natural History

The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibition halls, in addition to a planetarium and a library. The museum collections contain over 34 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts, as well as specialized collections for frozen tissue and genomic and astrophysical data, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time. The museum occupies more than . AMNH has a full-time scientific staff of 225, sponsors over 120 special field expeditions each year, and averages about five million visits annually.

The AMNH is a private 501(c)(3) organization. Its mission statement is: "To discover, interpret, and disseminate—through scientific research and education—knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."

History

Founding

The naturalist Dr. Albert S. Bickmore devised the idea for the American Museum of Natural History in 1861. At the time, he was studying in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at Louis Agassiz's Museum of Comparative Zoology. Observing that many European natural history museums were in populous cities, Bickmore wrote in a biography: "Now New York is our city of greatest wealth and therefore probably the best location for the future museum of natural history for our whole land." For several years, Bickmore lobbied for the establishment of a natural history museum in New York. Upon the end of the American Civil War, Bickmore asked numerous prominent New Yorkers, such as William E. Dodge Jr., to sponsor his museum. Although Dodge himself could not fund the museum at the time, he introduced the naturalist to Theodore Roosevelt Sr., the father of future U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt.

Calls for a natural history museum increased after Barnum's American Museum burned down in 1868. Eighteen prominent New Yorkers wrote a letter to the Central Park Commission that December, requesting the creation of a natural history museum in Central Park. Central Park commissioner Andrew Haswell Green indicated his support for the project in January 1869. A board of trustees was created for the museum. The next month, Bickmore and Joseph Hodges Choate drafted a charter for the museum, which the board of trustees approved without any changes. It was in this charter that the "American Museum of Natural History" name was first used. Bickmore said he wanted the museum's name to reflect his "expectation that our museum will ultimately become the leading institution of its kind in our country", similar to the British Museum. Before the museum was established, Bickmore needed to secure approval from Boss Tweed, leader of the powerful and corrupt Tammany Hall political organization. The legislation to establish the American Museum of Natural History had to be signed by John Thompson Hoffman, the governor of New York, who was associated with Tweed.

Hoffman signed the legislation creating the museum on April 6, 1869, with John David Wolfe as its first president. Subsequently, the chairman of the AMNH's executive committee asked Green if the museum could use the top two stories of Central Park's Arsenal, and Green approved the request in January 1870. Insect specimens were placed on the lower level of the Arsenal, while stones, fossils, mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles were placed on the upper level. The museum opened within the Arsenal on May 22, 1871. The AMNH became popular in the following years. The Arsenal location had 856,773 visitors in the first nine months of 1876 alone, more than the British Museum had recorded for all of 1874.

Construction

Meanwhile, the AMNH's directors had identified Manhattan Square (bounded by Eighth Avenue/Central Park West, 81st Street, Ninth Avenue/Columbus Avenue, and 77th Street) as a site for a permanent structure. Several prominent New Yorkers had raised $500,000 to fund the construction of the new building. The city's park commissioners then reserved Manhattan Square as the site of the permanent museum, and another $200,000 was raised for the building fund. Numerous dignitaries and officials, including U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant, attended the museum's groundbreaking ceremony on June 3, 1874. The museum opened on December 22, 1877, with a ceremony attended by U.S. president Rutherford B. Hayes.

The original Victorian Gothic building was designed by Calvert Vaux and J. Wrey Mould, both already closely identified with the architecture of Central Park. Vaux and Mould's original plan was intended to complement the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the opposite side of Central Park. The original building, as constructed, was at the center of the 77th Street frontage and consisted of a gallery measuring long and tall. This gallery contained a raised basement, three stories of exhibits, Venetian Gothic arches, and an attic with dormers and a slate roof. The original structure still exists but is hidden from view by the many buildings in the complex that today occupy most of Manhattan Square. The museum remains accessible through its 77th Street foyer, which has since been renamed the Grand Gallery.

The full plan called for twelve pavilions similar in design to the original building. Eight pavilions would have been arranged as the sides of a square, while the remaining four would be perpendicular to each other in the interior of the square. There were to be eight towers along the perimeter of the square, as well as a dome in the center, at the intersection of the four interior pavilions. In each pavilion, there was to be a ground floor; the second floor was to contain a gallery; the third floor was to exhibit specimens; and the fourth floor was to be used for research. Upon the intended completion of the master plan, the museum would measure from north to south and from west to east, including projections from the square. The finished structure, with a ground area of over , would have been the largest building in North America, as well as the largest museum building in the world. The master plan was never fully realized; by 2015, the museum consisted of 25 separate buildings that were poorly connected.

Expansion and later changes

19th century

The original building was soon eclipsed by the south range of the museum, designed by J. Cleaveland Cady, an exercise in rusticated brownstone neo-Romanesque, influenced by H. H. Richardson. It extends along West 77th Street, with corner towers tall. Its pink brownstone and granite, similar to that found at Grindstone Island in the St. Lawrence River, came from quarries at Picton Island, New York.

20th century

In the early 1920s, museum president Henry Fairfield Osborn planned a new entrance for the AMNH, which was to contain a memorial to Theodore Roosevelt. Also around that time, the New York state government formed a commission to study the feasibility of a Roosevelt memorial. After a dispute over whether to put the memorial in Albany or in New York City, the government of New York City offered a site next to the AMNH for consideration. The commission rejected a "conventional Greek mausoleum" design, instead opting to design a triumphal arch and hall in a Roman style. In 1925, the AMNH's trustees hosted an architectural design competition, selecting John Russell Pope to design the memorial hall. Construction began in 1929, and the trustees approved final plans the next year. J. Harry McNally was the general contractor. Roosevelt's cousin, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, dedicated the memorial on January 19, 1936.

The original building was later known as "Wing A". During the 1950s, the top floor was renovated into a library, being redecorated with what Christopher Gray of ''The New York Times'' described as "dropped ceilings and the other usual insults". The ten-story Childs Frick Building, which contained the AMNH's fossil collection, was added to the museum in the 1970s. The architect Kevin Roche and his firm Roche-Dinkeloo have been responsible for the master planning of the museum since the 1990s. Various renovations to both the interior and exterior have been carried out. Renovations to the Dinosaur Hall were undertaken beginning in 1991, and Roche-Dinkeloo designed the eight-story AMNH Library in 1992. The museum's Rose Center for Earth and Space was completed in 2000.

21st century

The museum's lecture hall was renamed the Samuel J. and Ethel LeFrak Theater in 2001 after Samuel J. LeFrak donated $8 million to the AMNH. The museum's south facade, spanning 77th Street from Central Park West to Columbus Avenue, was cleaned, repaired, and re-emerged in 2009. Steven Reichl, a spokesman for the museum, said that work would include restoring 650 black-cherry window frames and stone repairs. The museum's consultant on the latest renovation was Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc., an architectural and engineering firm with headquarters in Northbrook, Illinois. The museum also restored the mural in Roosevelt Memorial Hall in 2010.

In 2014, the museum published plans for a $325 million, annex, the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, on the Columbus Avenue side. Designed by Studio Gang, Higgins Quasebarth & Partners and landscape architects Reed Hilderbrand, the new building's pink Milford granite facade will have a textural, curvilinear design inspired by natural topographical elements showcased in the museum, including "geological strata, glacier-gouged caves, curving canyons, and blocks of glacial ice," as a striking contrast to the museum's predominance of High Victorian Gothic, Richardson Romanesque and Beaux Arts architectural styles. The interior itself would contain a new entrance from Columbus Avenue north of 79th Street; a multiple-story storage structure containing specimens and objects; rooms to display these objects; an insect hall; an "interpretive" "wayfinding wall", and a theater. This expansion was originally supposed to be south of the existing museum, occupying parts of Theodore Roosevelt Park. The expansion was relocated to the west side of the existing museum, and its footprint was reduced in size, due to opposition to construction in the park. The annex would instead replace three existing buildings along Columbus Avenue's east side, with more than 30 connections to the existing museum, and it would be six stories high, the same height as the existing buildings. The plans for the expansion were scrutinized by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. On October 11, 2016, the Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously approved the expansion. Construction of the Gilder Center, which was expected to break ground the next year following design development and Environmental Impact Statement stages, would entail demolition of three museum buildings built between 1874 and 1935. The museum formally filed plans to construct the expansion in August 2017, but due to community opposition, construction did not start until June 2019. The project is expected to be complete by 2022.

New York State Memorial to Theodore Roosevelt

The main entrance hall on Central Park West is formally known as the New York State Memorial to Theodore Roosevelt. Completed by John Russell Pope in 1936, it is an over-scaled Beaux-Arts monument to former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt. The hall was originally supposed to have formed one end of an "Intermuseum Promenade" through Central Park, connecting with the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the east, but the promenade was never completed.

The memorial hall has a pink-granite facade, which is modeled after Roman arches. In front of the hall on Central Park West is a terrace measuring long, as well as a series of steps. The main entrance consists of an arch measuring high. The underside of the arch is a coffered granite vestibule, which leads to a bronze, glass, and marble screen. On either side of the arch are niches that contain sculptures of a bison and a bear. It is flanked by two pairs of columns, which are topped by figures of American explorers John James Audubon, Daniel Boone, Meriwether Lewis, and William Clark. These figures were sculpted by James Earle Fraser and are about high. In the attic above the main archway, there is an inscription describing Roosevelt's accomplishments. The words "Truth", "Knowledge", and "Vision" are carved into the entablature under this inscription.

Fraser also designed an equestrian statue of Theodore Roosevelt, flanked by a Native American and an African American, which originally stood outside the memorial hall. In the 21st century, the statue generated controversy due to its subordinate depiction of these figures behind Roosevelt. This prompted AMNH officials to announce in 2020 that they would remove the statue. The statue was removed in January 2022 and will be on a long-term loan to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota.The interior of the Memorial Hall measures across, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling measuring tall. The ceiling contains octagonal coffers, while the floors are made of mosaic marble tiles. The lowest of the walls are wainscoted in marble, above which the walls of the memorial hall are made of limestone. The top of each wall contains a marble band and a Corinthian entablature. Each of the Memorial Hall's four sides contains two red-marble columns, each measuring tall and rising from a Botticino marble pedestal. There are rounded windows at clerestory level on the north and south walls. William Andrew MacKay designed three murals depicting important events in Roosevelt's life: the construction of the Panama Canal on the north wall, African exploration on the west wall, and the Treaty of Portsmouth on the south wall. The east and west walls, contain four quotes from Roosevelt under the headings "Nature", "Manhood", "Youth", and "The State".

The Memorial Hall originally connected to various classrooms, exhibition rooms, and a 600-person auditorium. Directly underneath the Memorial Hall is an entrance to the 81st Street–Museum of Natural History station. Today, the hall connects to the Akeley Hall of African Mammals and the Hall of Asian Mammals. The Memorial Hall contains four exhibits that describe Theodore Roosevelt's conservation activities in his youth, early adulthood, U.S. presidency, and post-presidency.

Mammal halls

Old World mammals

Akeley Hall of African Mammals

Named after taxidermist Carl Akeley, the Akeley Hall of African Mammals is a two-story hall on the second floor, directly west of the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall. It connects to the Hall of African Peoples to the west. The Hall of African Mammals' 28 dioramas depict in meticulous detail the great range of ecosystems found in Africa and the mammals endemic to them. The centerpiece of the hall is a pack of eight African elephants in a characteristic 'alarmed' formation. Though the mammals are typically the main feature in the dioramas, birds and flora of the regions are occasionally featured as well. The hall in its current form was completed in 1936.

The Hall of African Mammals was first proposed to the museum by Carl Akeley around 1909; he proposed 40 dioramas featuring the rapidly vanishing landscapes and animals of Africa. Daniel Pomeroy, a trustee of the museum and partner at J.P. Morgan & Co., offered investors the opportunity to accompany the museum's expeditions in Africa in exchange for funding. Akeley began collecting specimens for the hall as early as 1909, famously encountering Theodore Roosevelt in the midst of the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African expedition. On these early expeditions, Akeley was accompanied by his former apprentice in taxidermy, James L. Clark, and artist, William R. Leigh. When Akeley returned to Africa to collect gorillas for the hall's first diorama, Clark remained behind and began scouring the country for artists to create the backgrounds. The eventual appearance of the first habitat groups impacted the design of other diorama halls, including Birds of the World, the Hall of North American Mammals, the Vernay Hall of Southeast Asian Mammals, and the Hall of Oceanic Life.

After Akeley's unexpected death during the Eastman-Pommeroy expedition in 1926, responsibility of the hall's completion fell to James L. Clark, who hired architectural artist James Perry Wilson in 1933 to assist Leigh in the painting of backgrounds. Wilson made many improvements on Leigh's techniques, including a range of methods to minimize the distortion caused by the dioramas' curved walls. In 1936, William Durant Campbell, a wealthy board member with a desire to see Africa, offered to fund several dioramas if allowed to obtain the specimens himself. Clark agreed to this arrangement, resulting in the acquisition of numerous large specimens. Kane joined Leigh, Wilson, and several other artists in completing the hall's remaining dioramas. Though construction of the hall was completed in 1936, the dioramas gradually opened between the mid-1920s and early 1940s.

Hall of Asian Mammals

The Hall of Asian Mammals, sometimes referred to as the Vernay-Faunthorpe Hall of Asian Mammals, is directly south of the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall. It contains 8 complete dioramas, 4 partial dioramas, and 6 habitat groups of mammals and locations from India, Nepal, Burma, and Malaysia. The hall opened in 1930 and, similar to the Akeley Hall of African Mammals, is centered around 2 Asian elephants. At one point, a giant panda and Siberian tiger were also part of the Hall's collection, originally intended to be part of an adjoining Hall of North Asian Mammals (planned in the current location of Stout Hall of Asian Peoples). These specimens can currently be seen in the Hall of Biodiversity.

Specimens for the Hall of Asian Mammals were collected over six expeditions led by British-born antiques dealer Arthur S. Vernay and Col. John Faunthorpe (as noted by stylized plaques at both entrances). The expeditions were funded entirely by Vernay, who characterized the expense as a British tribute to American involvement in World War I. The first Vernay-Faunthorpe expedition took place in 1922, when many of the animals Vernay was seeking, such as the Sumatran rhinoceros and Asiatic lion, were facing the possibility of extinction. Vernay made many appeals to regional authorities to obtain hunting permits; in later museum-related expeditions headed by Vernay, these appeals helped the museum gain access to areas previously restricted to foreign visitors. Artist Clarence C. Rosenkranz accompanied the Vernay-Faunthorpe expeditions as field artist and painted the majority of the diorama backgrounds in the hall. These expeditions were also well documented in both photo and video, with enough footage of the first expedition to create a feature-length film, ''Hunting Tigers in India'' (1929).

New World mammals

Bernard Family Hall of North American Mammals

The Bernard Family Hall of North American Mammals is on the first floor, directly west of the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall. features 43 dioramas of various mammals of the American continent, north of tropical Mexico. Each diorama places focus on a particular species, ranging from the largest megafauna to the smaller rodents and carnivorans. Notable dioramas include the Alaskan brown bears looking at a salmon after they scared off an otter, a pair of wolves, a pair of Sonoran jaguars, and dueling bull Alaska moose.

The Hall of North American Mammals opened in 1942 with only ten dioramas. Another 16 dioramas were added in 1963. A massive restoration project began in late 2011 following a large donation from Jill and Lewis Bernard. In October 2012 the hall was reopened as the Bernard Hall of North American Mammals.

=Hall of Small Mammals

=
The Hall of Small Mammals is an offshoot of the Bernard Family Hall of North American Mammals, directly to the west of the latter. There are several small dioramas featuring small mammals found throughout North America, including collared peccaries, Abert's squirrel, and a wolverine.

Birds, reptiles, and amphibian halls

Sanford Hall of North American Birds

The Sanford Hall of North American birds is a one-story hall on the third floor, between the Hall of Primates and Akeley Hall's second level. There are over 20 dioramas depicting birds from across North America in their native habitats. At the far end of the hall are two large murals by ornithologist and artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes. The hall also has display cases devoted to large collections of warblers, owls, and raptors.

Conceived by museum ornithologist Frank Chapman, the Hall is named for Chapman's friend and amateur ornithologist Leonard C. Sanford, who partially funded the hall and also donated the entirety of his own bird specimen collection to the museum. Construction began on the hall's dioramas as early as 1902, and the dioramas opened in 1909. They were the first to be exhibited in the museum and are the oldest still on display. The hall was refurbished in 1962.

Although Chapman was not the first to create museum dioramas, he was the first to bring artists into the field with him in the hopes of capturing a specific location at a specific time. In contrast to the dramatic scenes that Akeley created for the African Hall, Chapman wanted his dioramas to evoke a scientific realism, ultimately serving as a historical record of habitats and species facing a high probability of extinction. Each of Chapman's dioramas depicted a species, their nests, and of the surrounding habitat in each direction.

Hall of Birds of the World

The Hall of Birds of the World is on the south side of the second floor. The global diversity of bird species is exhibited in this hall. 12 dioramas showcase various ecosystems around the world and provide a sample of the varieties of birds that live there. Example dioramas include South Georgia featuring king penguins and skuas, the East African plains featuring secretarybirds and bustards, and the Australian outback featuring honeyeaters, cockatoos, and kookaburras.

Whitney Memorial Hall of Oceanic Birds

This particular hall has undergone a complicated history over the years since its founding in 1953. Frank Chapman and Leonard C. Sanford, originally museum volunteers, had gone forward with creation of a hall to feature birds of the Pacific islands. In the years up to its founding, the museum had engaged in various expeditions to Fiji, New Zealand, and the Marianas (among other locations) to collect birds for the exhibit. The hall was designed as a completely immersive collection of dioramas, including a circular display featuring birds-of-paradise. In 1998, The Butterfly Conservatory was installed inside the hall originally as a temporary exhibit, but as the popular demand of the exhibit increased, the Hall of Oceanic Birds has more or less remained closed by the museum.

Hall of Reptiles and Amphibians

The Hall of Reptiles and Amphibians is near the southeast corner of the third floor. It serves as an introduction to herpetology, with many exhibits detailing reptile evolution, anatomy, diversity, reproduction, and behavior. Notable exhibits include a Komodo dragon group, an American alligator, Lonesome George, the last Pinta Island tortoise, and poison dart frogs.

In 1926, W. Douglas Burden, F.J. Defosse, and Emmett Reid Dunn collected specimens of the Komodo Dragon for the museum. Burden's chapter "The Komodo Dragon", in ''Look to the Wilderness'', describes the expedition, the habitat, and the behavior of the dragon. The hall opened in 1927 and was rebuilt from 1969 to 1977 at a cost of $1.3 million.

Biodiversity and environmental halls

Hall of Biodiversity

The Hall of Biodiversity is underneath the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall. It opened in May 1998. The hall primarily contains exhibits and objects highlighting the concept of biodiversity, the interactions between living organisms, and the negative impacts of extinction on biodiversity. The hall includes a diorama depicting the Dzanga-Sangha Special Reserve rainforest with over 160 animal and plant species. The diorama shows the rainforest in three states: pristine, altered by human activity, and destroyed by human activity. Another attraction in the hall is "The Spectrum of Habitats", a video wall displaying footage of nine ecosystems. There is a "Transformation Wall", containing information and stories detailing changes to biodiversity, and a "Solutions Wall", containing suggestions on how to increase biodiversity.

Hall of North American Forests

The Hall of North American Forests is a one-story hall on the museum's first floor in between the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall and the Warburg Hall of New York State Environments. It contains ten dioramas depicting a range of forest types from across North America as well as several displays on forest conservation and tree health. The hall was constructed under the guidance of botanist Henry K. Svenson and opened in 1958. Each diorama specifically lists both the location and exact time of year depicted. Trees and plants featured in the dioramas are constructed of a combination of art supplies and actual bark and other specimens collected in the field. The entrance to the hall features a cross section from the Mark Twain Tree, 1,400-year-old sequoia taken from the King's River grove on the west flank of the Sierra Mountains in 1891.

Warburg Hall of New York State Environments

Warburg Hall of New York State Environments is a one-story hall on the museum's ground floor in between the Hall of North American Forests and the Grand Hall. Based on the town of Pine Plains and near-by Stissing Mountain in Dutchess County, the hall gives a multi-faceted presentation of the eco-systems typical of New York. Aspects covered include soil types, seasonal changes, and the impact of both humans and nonhuman animals on the environment. It is named for the German-American philanthropist, Felix M. Warburg. Originally known as the "Hall of Man and Nature", Warburg Hall opened in 1951. It has changed little since and is now frequently regarded for its retro-modern styling. The hall shares many of the exhibit types featured throughout the museum as well as one display type, unique to Warburg, which features a recessed miniature diorama behind a foreground of species and specimens from the environment depicted.

Milstein Hall of Ocean Life

The Milstein Hall of Ocean Life is in the southeastern quadrant of the first floor, west of the Hall of Biodiversity. It focuses on marine biology, botany and marine conservation. The center of the hall contains a -long blue whale model. The upper level of the hall exhibits the vast array of ecosystems present in the ocean. Dioramas compare and contrast the life in these different settings including polar seas, kelp forests, mangroves, coral reefs and the bathypelagic. It attempts to show how vast and varied the oceans are while encouraging common themes throughout. The lower half of the hall consists of 15 large dioramas of larger marine organisms. It is on this level that the famous "Squid and the Whale" diorama sits, depicting a hypothetical fight between the two creatures. Other notable exhibits in this hall include the two-level Andros Coral Reef Diorama. Upper dioramas are smaller versions of the ecosystems when the bottom versions are much bigger and more life like.

In 1910, museum president Henry F. Osborn proposed the construction of a large building in the museum's southeast courtyard to house a new Hall of Ocean Life in which "models and skeletons of whales" would be exhibited. The hall opened in 1924 and was renovated in 1962. In 1969, a renovation gave the hall a more explicit focus on oceanic megafauna, including the addition of a lifelike blue whale model to replace a popular steel and papier-mâché whale model that had hung in the Biology of Mammals hall. Richard Van Gelder oversaw the creation of the hall in its current incarnation. The hall was renovated once again in 2003, this time with environmentalism and conservation being the main focal points, and was renamed after developer Paul Milstein

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