All the must-see museum lists have the American Museum of Natural History on them. There’s more than one entrance, but if you go in this entrance the “wow” starts immediately.
I went in the entrance connected to the 81st Street subway station (the station is decorated with adorable mosaic animals).
The idea was to add on to the original 1877 building, and while there have been additions, they didn’t stick with the original plan. (There’s an abstract-modern-ish expansion going up right now.)
At the moment, there’s more than 2 million square feet of museum where 5 million annual visitors can see 34 million specimens. This is the Hall of North American Mammals.
It felt strange, honestly, to see the stuffed specimens. They were probably hunted and shot, but was there a greater conservation gain from allowing people to see them up close?
This was cool. Definitely eye-catching with a long-necked dinosaur looking out the doorway.
Geeking out over dinosaur bones, and I’m not especially into dinosaurs. It was just. so. cool.
Look at the tiny triceratops statue!
Giant geodes! This is the Hall of Gems and Minerals.
It was mesmerizing. This might have been my favorite part.
The special exhibit was about sharks!
This little guy was the greeter at the door.
One of the things the museum is famous for is the blue whale in the Hall of Ocean Life. It’s 94 feet of foam and fiberglass and weighs 21,000 pounds. It was created in the mid-1960s and renovated in 2001.
The Hall of Biodiversity.
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