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American Museum of Natural History

My main purpose was to visit my old friend Ethel. In fact, I realized that visiting Ethel at her office in the American Museum of Natural History is probably the most persistent activity in my life; my mom would take me up to visit her old high school friend when I was a small kid. We would come to the museum and upstairs to her lab (Ethel was a Curator at the museum, specializing in comparative animal psychology). We would see her lab animals. I remember rabbits (and later, searching tidepools in San Pedro for sea slugs). And I'm still visiting here there!

But aside from this strong personal contact, I just love this museum, and I always have. I probably spent six or eight hours this trip just wandering its halls, and could easily have spent more time there.

1. Dinosaurs and such

Big difference in the way dinosaurs are treated in the AMNH and the LA County Museum of Natural History. In LA, dinosaurs are extinct reptiles. In New York, dinosaurs are animals that "dominated the earth for 150 million years," and are now mostly extinct except for one large group that continue to be seen around the world: birds.

Which is righ? I don't know. I think it's an item of contention among scientists. I like the AMNH view, but Ethel says the museum relies too heavily on "cladistics," the drawing of family trees that claim to show the relationship of animals based heavily on anatomical features.

2. Frogs, Elephants and such

Its interesting to reflect on the evolution of style in museum display by comparing, for example, the classic Hall of African Mammals with the contemporary Hall of Biodiversity.

The former features stuffed and mounted life-like "specimens" set in their habitats, recreated in three dimensions with beautiful painted backdrops. You can almost feel you are there, with the jackles at the kill, the eagle high in its aerie or the chimp in his jungle underbrush.

Now consider the Hall of Biodiversity. I knew a woman who thought there were two distinct ways of thinking, which she called "geometric" and "biomorphic." The Halls of Mammals are geometric; Bidodiversity is biomorphic, more free and wild and, in its own way, life-like. You don't quite know what you are looking at, or how it all fits together. At least not at first glance. In the center is a chunk of rain forest. A monkey up a tree. Other things. A curious case has stuffed animals, but not in their own habitats; posed naturally and arftully, but with no backdrops or foliage. A half dozen or so unrelated animals, including a beautiful tiger. On one wall there are displays about different animal groups with specimens, text and video. Off to one side there's a separate section with quotes about nature from famous people (see below).

3. Biodiversity

4. Theodore Roosevelt

The American Museum of Natural History was founded just after the Civil War. Ethel told me that civic leaders were concerned that immigrants coming into the city would lose touch with their rural roots and the lands they came from, and the museum was intended to help them hold on to those roots. But the grand edifice that I always associate with the museum was built in the 1920s as a memorial to New York's native son, former governor and president Theodore Roosevelt.

Consider the bronze statue that sits in front of the museum, facing central park. TR is mounted, heroically, on a horse; standing on either side are a Negro and and Indian. It's the great white father going forth to bring the great edifice of western civilization to the backward world. Ethel told me that some years ago, there was a move to melt the statue down and put the metal to a practical use (bullet casings, I think she said), but that it was saved from the smelter and continues to inspire us with its pomposity.

Politically, I know it's wrong, but I just can't help it. I love that big brass, the inscriptions carved in stone, the pillars, the magnificent halls, the mounted dinosaur skeletons, the stuffed and mounted elephant herds, the tall murals (I can't tell if they are supposed to depict history or mythology) and the Halls of Human Knowledge. I just love this museum!

United Nations

Chrysler Building

Hammer and Sickles
part of an ongoing series

See also: Visit to the LA County Museum of Natural History

Brooklyn

A meal I must mention...

Shrimp and alligator sausage cheesecake

I asked the waiter to describe it; he said he couldn't, all he could say was that it was delicious.

And it was!