American Museum of Natural History

Description:

• Founded in 1869 by a group that included J.P. Morgan and Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., father of the 26th U.S. president, the American Museum of Natural History is a remarkable architectural landmark, with its combination of Neo-Gothic and Neo-Romanesque styles and its grand white-columned entrance on Central Park West, marked by a statue of President Theodore Roosevelt. The museum complex contains 27 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibit halls, a planetarium, temporary exhibition halls, research and collections facilities, and a library in the natural sciences; add parking and service amenities and the area totals 1.6 million square feet.
  
  The museum's vast selection of permanent exhibitions and its various special temporary exhibitions focus on illuminating various aspects of the earth's evolution, from the birth of the planet through the present day. Those that have the energy and perseverance to tour all of the museum's four floors of gallery space will be rewarded with a "field guide to life on Earth, the cultures of humanity, and the latest discoveries in the cosmos," according to the museum's Web site. In addition to the expansive galleries of dinosaurs, whales, birds, snakes and aquatic life, the museum features the recently revamped Rose Center for Earth and Space and the Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth. Other permanent exhibits are the Fossils Halls, the Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Hall of Minerals, the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, Biodiversity, Mollusks, and Our World.
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