Limited Access Visit #5: American Museum of Natural History

On the 25th I went to the Natural History museum. I brought with me the prejudice that it was a pretty dull museum best used for grade school field trips. I was there to see the whole thing and see if that would change my mind.

I think this post will mostly be an image dump. We start at the entry, we go through the animals, we see some indigenous peoples, go see the dinosaurs, then more animals, and then the tiny bit of the space part that was open. That was basically it.

So. Yeah. The AMNH doesn’t really do it for me. It’s like fun to see the animals for a while, I love a diorama, after all. And then some of the people stuff. But eventually it’s just kind of a yawn. A few times the last couple years I have cut through the museum from Columbus to Central Park West instead of walking down 77th street and I think that’s my favorite way to see it: quickly, looking at a few things as I walk by them, maybe going down to see the whale. Something that was kind of fun about this visit was that it was so very empty, bu there were cleaning people just about everywhere. So must exhibits it was just me, some pots and stones, and the sound of a janitor’s cart rolling through the room. Two more things: somehow they manage to show off a lot of dinosaurs without making it exciting at all AND the museum is currently very on display showing that it is struggling with its connection to Teddy Roosevelt. I understand that the statue in front can be viewed as rather culturally and racially insensitive BUT to be displaying that you’re thinking of cutting ties with TR completely? Yeah. That’s a mistake.