Name Dropping in NYC

"New York, New York, a helluva* town.

The Bronx is up, but the Battery's down.

The people ride in a hole in the groun'.

New York, New York, it's a helluva town!"

~ from Leonard Bernstein's musical, "On the Town"

Natives of Manhattan do not navigate by the position of the sun, probably because the sun cannot be seen from the bottom of the canyons that are New York City's streets.  Nor do they make their way by directions such as north, south, east or west.   Instead, they head downtown towards Battery Park and the harbor or uptown past Central Park into Harlem and beyond to the Bronx.   

Keeping Leonard Bernstein's directions in mind, on Monday my husband Tim headed to work "downtown" in Lower Manhattan while Jillian, Richard and I headed "uptown" to visit the American Museum of Natural History, the largest natural history museum in the world.

American Museum of Natural History in New York City

One passes through the museum's main entrance directly into the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda.  Immediately, the name dropping begins because this museum has illustrious connections to several famous Americans.

Barosaurus, the world's tallest free-standing dinosaur mount, in the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda

Born in New York City, Theodore Roosevelt was not only the 26th president of the United States; he was also a noted naturalist who sent trophies from his rambles through the American West and from his 10-month African safari back to his favorite museum, the American Museum of Natural History.  Indeed, the museum's charter was signed in his childhood home in 1869 when his father, Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., joined J. P. Morgan and several other prominent New Yorkers to found the museum.  After his presidency and supported by the museum, Teddy Roosevelt led an expedition into the deep and dark jungles of the Amazon to chart the course of a river that would subsequently be named Rio Roosevelt in his honor. 

Obviously, Teddy had issues with reinventing himself after retirement just as I do!  For a fascinating account of Roosevelt's Amazon expedition which almost ended in his suicide, a friend recommended Candice Millard's book, The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, to me.  Perhaps you might enjoy it, too.


Hall of Pacific Peoples

The renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead was only 23 when she traveled to Samoa in 1924 to conduct research for her doctoral dissertation which she later published as Coming of Age in Samoa.  Beginning in 1926, Mead worked in the Department of Anthropology within the American Museum of Natural History for over 40 years.  As she continued her research into the cultures of the South Pacific, she sent home artifacts to the museum.  Her artifacts largely fill the museum's Hall of Pacific Peoples. 

The museum also contains exhibits about space, geology, minerals, aquatic life, meteorites and habitat dioramas of mammals. 

This diaorama reminded me of the buffalo herd near Lewis, KS.

Here are two of my favorite mammals in their natural habitat as they take a lunch time break outside the museum in nearby Central Park. 

Jillian and Richard

Was Roy Chapman Andrews, the noted dinosaur adventurer who discovered fossilized dinosaur eggs in Mongolia, the explorer that inspired filmmaker George Lucas to create the Indiana Jones hero?  Lucas has never confirmed this; yet Andrews was practically a explorer-superstar in the 1920s.  His autobiography, Under a Lucky Star: A Lifetime of Adventure, certainly reads like an Indiana Jones movie.  Upon his graduation from Beloit College in 1906, Andrews wanted to work at the American Museum of Natural History so desparately that he took a job as a janitor in the taxidermy department.  Andrews remained on the museum's staff throughout his career, eventually serving as the museum's director from 1935 to 1942.  No doubt the museum's largest collection of fossilized dinosaur bones in the world owes much to Andrews' contributions. 

Tyrannosaurus Rex

Harry Houdini donated his stuffed gray parrot to the museum while the skeleton of Jumbo the Elephant was a gift from P.T. Barnum.

Jumbo the Elephant

The extinct dodo bird is certainly not a person whose name one might drop, but it does claim a spot in the museum's Hall of Biodiversity.  Seeing its skeleton was definitely a highlight for me!

Extinct DoDo Bird's Skeleton

Moby Dick might not be the name of this blue whale suspended from the ceiling of the museum's Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, but he certainly catches one's attention.  Blue whales may grow up to 120 feet and sometimes weigh more than 100 tons.  Fortunately for the museum visitors wandering the floor below him, this whale is made of fiberglass.
 

Blue Whale

Leaving the museum to walk back to the hotel through Central Park provided even more opportunities to name drop.

American Museum of Natural History

Central Park opened in 1857 on 843 acres of city-owned land, but it was expanded and redesigned by Frederick Law Olmsted and his partner Calvert Vaux.  Both worked on the park more than fifteen years to bring their design into reality.  Their idyllic, naturalistic design was innovative in its inclusion of separate "circulation systems," creating routes for pedestrians, equestrians, and vehicles that kept them apart from one other.  Even today, the four "crosstown" transverses of 65th, 79th, 86th and 97th Streets are sunken and concealed by landscaping that hides and minimizes the noise of vehicular traffic through the park. 

The Lake in Central Park

Naturally, New Yorkers who can afford it want to live next to Central Park.  On the west side of Central Park is the Dakota, a co-op apartment building called home by several famous Americans including Leonard Bernstein, Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, Boris Karloff, Connie Cheung, John Madden, Roberta Flack, Jason Robards, Joe Namath, Willian Inge, Gilda Radner, Rosemary Clooney and Jose Ferrer. 

The Dakota

Perhaps its most famous residents were Yoko Ono and John Lennon who was murdered at its entrance by gunman Mark Chapman as Lennon returned home late on Saturday night, December 8, 1980.  After Lennon was cremated, Ono, who still resides in the Dakota, scattered his ashes in the area of Central Park now called Strawberry Fields located just across the street. 

Imagine mosaic in the center of Strawberry Fields within Central Park

Enscribed with the name of one of Lennon's songs, the Imagine mosaic is a tribute to John Lennon's life and his hope for world peace. 

Minskoff Theatre in Times Square

This evening we attended the Broadway production of "The Lion King," whose musical score was written by Elton John and Tim Rice.  It seemed a fitting conclusion to a day spent name dropping and exploring the natural history found in New York City.