American Museum off Natural History
The American Museum off Natural History ( American natural history museum of natural history ) is one of the large museums of New York. It is located on the island of Manhattan in the district of the Upper West Side, with the crossing of the 81e street and West Central Park.
The Natural history museum, open in December 1877, employs more than 1.200 people and finance each year a hundred of scientific exhibitions.
Some figures
(According to the booklet of information of the natural history museum)- 32 million specimens and
- objects 45 halls of permanent exposures
- 47 scientific conservatives and 200 researchers
- 70 stock-brokers of higher learning and postdoctorales
- Two molecular laboratories
- More than 150 conferences, films, workshops, demonstrations for any public each year
History of the museum and the collections
Created in 1869, it is initially lodged in the Arsenal building of Central Park. In 1874, a ground was acquired with the site where it is currently the first part was built in a style neogothic, by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould, which collaborated with Frederick Law Olmsted for the structures of Central Park. The southern wing is a néoromane realization out of brown stone of J. Cleaveland Cady, where one notices the influence of Henry Hobson Richardson. The entry in the shape of Roman triumphal arch, which gives on West Central Park, is the work of John Russell Pope and was completed in 1936. It leads to a large Romance basilica, where the visitor is accommodated by the skeleton of a Apatosaure which defends its small against a Allosaure.
Permanent collections
Natural science
The museum is known for its African, Asian and North-American collections of Mammifère S, for a reconstitution life size of a Blue whale suspended in the hall of the oceans, but also an authentic dugout of long, painted and carved war Haida twenty meters. One can admire also there the Star off India , which is largest blue Saphir of the world. A complete stage is devoted to the evolution of the Vertébré S, by presenting in particular the history of the Dinosaure S.The collections shelter more than 30 million specimens, its collections of Insecte S and of Fossile S are among richest of the world. The Natural history museum is also a research center in particular in Anthropologie, Astronomie, Entomologie and other branches treating of the Invertébré S, Ornithologie, Herpétologie, Ichtyologie, Mammalogie, Minéralogie and in Paléontologie of the Vertébré S.
- Faune
- North America
- Mineralogy
- Anatomy
Human cultures and civilizations
The anthropological collections are also remarkable:
- African, Asian people and of the Pacific
- remarkable collections on the Indian of America: Mexico, Central America and South American people (Amazonia, Peru).
The library of the natural history museum is rich of 485.000 volumes and also has an important bottom of photographs, films and manuscripts. The natural history museum makes appear the famous monthly magazine Natural History Magazine which received in particular the chronicles of Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002).
Pink Center for Earth and Space
Beside the museum is Hayden Planetarium, which forms now part of the Pink Center for Earth and Space , installed in a cube of glass designed by James Stewart Polshek. The library of this part of the Natural history museum counts 10.000 volumes on the Astronomie. The center opened in 2000 and offers to the visitors a voyage in the middle of the universe. The Planétarium is the place of a projection in 3D of a spectacle on the big bang and the various scales of cosmos.
See too
| Random links: | Canton of the Chartre-on-the-Dormouse | The Cloisters | Aminata Dramane Traoré | Saint-Pantaléon (Batch) | Cristofano Allori | Folkestone |