New York's natural history museum began in a park arsenal
Albert Bickmore wanted an American rival to Europe's city museums of nature. After lobbying Theodore Roosevelt Sr. and surviving Tammany politics, the collection opened in Central Park's Arsenal in 1871—drawing more visitors in nine months than London's British Museum tallied in a whole earlier year.
On Manhattan's Upper West Side, the American Museum of Natural History fills Theodore Roosevelt Park across from Central Park. Twenty-one linked buildings hold forty-five permanent halls plus a planetarium and library. About 32 million specimens—organisms, fossils, minerals, meteorites, human remains, cultural objects, frozen tissue, genomic and astrophysical data—occupy more than 2.5 million square feet, though only a sliver shows at once. Some 225 full-time scientists run over 120 field expeditions yearly; visits average about five million. A private 501(c)(3), it opened in the Arsenal on 22 May 1871 after Bickmore's idea took shape in 1861 at Agassiz's Cambridge museum. Vaux and Mould's first purpose-built wing opened 22 December 1877; a pavilion entrance named for Theodore Roosevelt arrived in 1936, and the Rose Center planetarium complex followed in 2000.
Barnum's museum fire in 1868 spurred eighteen prominent New Yorkers to petition for a park museum. Bickmore and Choate drafted the charter that coined the name, aiming to match the British Museum's stature. Governor Hoffman signed the founding law on 6 April 1869 after Boss Tweed's circle cleared the way; John David Wolfe became first president. Arsenal galleries stacked insects below and fossils, mammals, and birds above. By 1876's first nine months, 856,773 people had come. Fundraising of $500,000 plus another $200,000 secured Manhattan Square; Grant attended the 1874 groundbreaking, Hayes the 1877 opening. Sunday hours, fought for by working-class advocates, began in August 1892 after admission fees ended.
Wings kept sprouting along 77th Street and Central Park West. A 1,350-seat lecture hall opened in 1900; a brontosaurus became the dinosaur hall's star in February 1905. John Russell Pope's Roman-style Roosevelt memorial, dedicated by Franklin Roosevelt on 19 January 1936, reshaped the front. Kevin Roche's firm has master-planned since the 1990s; dinosaur halls were renovated from 1991, and the Rose Center finished in 2000. A planned Richard Gilder Center annex of about 195,000 square feet was announced in 2014 at $325 million. From cramped Arsenal floors to a scientific campus, Bickmore's city museum kept growing with the specimens.
Source: American Museum of Natural History
