Museums and Tourism: American Museum of Natural History

Upon our recent field trip I began to think about other museums in the area that I'd possibly like to visit and compare to our trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One museum that crossed my mind was the American Museum of Natural History. I don't know much of this museum other than what I've seen in Ben Stiller's "Night at the Museum." So I decided to do a little more research to see what I could find out about it.

The museum is located in Central Park West at 79th Street in New York City. It was founded on April 6th, 1869 by Albert Smith Bickmore with the support of William E. Dodge Jr., Theodore Roosevelt Sr., Joseph Choate, and J. Pierpont Morgan. Since the opening the museum has moved and been renovated several times adding more and more exhibits. The most recent renovation being in 2009 where they restored the 77th Street "Castle" facade. cleaning the masonry along the south side as well as complete reconstruction of the arch of the porte-cochere.

Today the museum has over 43 permanent exhibitions and is currently holding 6 temporary exhibitions. Among all of these you can find Theodore Roosevelt's Memorial, multiple fossil exhibits, and even exhibits based around Native Americans. There is a huge variety of artifacts at this museum that range from the ocean to outer-space and everything in between. I definitely wouldn't mind taking a trip there.

Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall_Sculpture_DL