Natural History Museum, New York City

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The American Museum of Natural History is part of the "museum mile" and opened in 1869. It has 4 floors (plus the lower level floor) full of interesting things to learn about us humans, the space, the sea, animals, minerals, etc. When visiting, put on some comfortable shoes and stay for at least one full afternoon.

My first stop was the diorama halls, with backgrounds so well made that they almost looked too real in my pictures. I enjoyed a lot the folks halls, with displays of cultural things about Asian people (China, India, Siberia, etc.) and Latin America (their exposition about the Caribbean was too little in my opinion).

There's 5 entrances to this museum: one on each street around the block, that most people use, plus the one by the subway that has less people buying tickets. As of Jan 2010, the fee for an adult was 21 US (not including temporary exhibitions or the Rose Space Center). See the link below for more information about temporary exhibitions, updated prices and opening times.

It is Pay What You Want, so instead of paying $16 each, we paid $10 each and we are so glad we did. We did not spend the extra coin to see the 'special' exhibits, we just did the regular admission to see what it was like.
We were disappointed overall with it actually. We thought it would be like it showed in the movie "Night at the Museum" but there was nothing we could see that was the same. There is a lot of information, you can tell that parts of it were done over and are very nice, but other sections are so outdated, still old panelling, the exhibits are so old they need to be changed, like a lot of the birds and animals, the hides look completely washed out, the feathers are faded, colours barely there, plexiglass cloudy, missing things, really just old old old.
Overall, it is okay, as mentioned some sections are nice, but some are not, I've seen better museums elsewhere. Still okay for likely most people, you should be able to find something interesting but don't go expecting to see anything from the movie.

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Dinosaurs, meteorites, fossils and more fascinating objects from nature are on display at the American Museum of Natural History. It is on of the city's largest and most visited museums. The Museum itself was founded in 1869, but only moved to its current location in the Upper West Side in 1877. However, the building was continually expanded and added to such that it's become a complex of interconnected buildings. One of its most intriguing wings is the Rose Planetarium, completed in 2000, it contains a sphere which shows films about our world and space that make it well worth a visit.

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The American Museum of Natural History is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world and my favorite. The Museum comprises 25 interconnected buildings that house 46 permanent exhibition halls, research laboratories, and its renowned library. The collections contain over 150 million specimens, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time. The Museum has a scientific staff of more than 200, and sponsors over 100 special field expeditions each year.

Most of the Museum's collections of dinosaur fossils remain hidden from public view. They are kept in numerous storage areas located deep within the Museum complex. Among these, the most significant storage facility is the ten story Childs Frick Building which stands within an inner courtyard of the Museum. The predicted great weight of the fossil bones led designers to add special steel reinforcement to the building's framework, as it now houses the largest collection of fossil mammals and dinosaurs in the world. The great fossil collections that are open to public view occupy the entire fourth floor of the Museum as well as a separate exhibit that is on permanent display in the Theodore Roosevelt Hall.

The Museum boasts habitat dioramas of African, Asian and North American mammals, a full-size model of a Blue Whale suspended in the Milstein Family Hall of Ocean Life, a 62 foot Haida carved and painted war canoe from the Pacific Northwest, a massive 31 ton piece of the Cape York meteorite, and the "Star of India", the largest star sapphire in the world. The circuit of an entire floor is devoted to vertebrate evolution.

The Harry Frank Guggenheim Hall of Minerals houses hundreds of unusual geological specimens. It adjoins the Morgan Memorial Hall of Gems showcasing many rare, and valuable gemstones. On display are many renowned samples that are chosen from among the Museum's more than 100,000 pieces. Included among these are the Patricia Emerald, a 632 carat, 12 sided stone that is considered to be one of the world's most fabulous emeralds. It was discovered during the 1920s in a mine high in the Colombian Andes and was named for the mine-owner's daughter.

The Museum has extensive anthropological collections: Asian Peoples, Pacific Peoples, Man in Africa, American Indian collections, general Native American collections, and collections from Mexico and Central America.

The Hayden Planetarium, connected to the Museum, is now part of the Rose Center for Earth and Space, housed in a glass cube containing the spherical Space Theater, designed by James Stewart Polshek. The Heilbrun Cosmic Pathway is one of the more popular exhibits in the Rose Center. The new building consists of a six-story high glass cube enclosing a 87-foot illuminated sphere that appears to float — although it is actually supported by truss work. James Polshek has referred to his work as a "cosmic cathedral". The Rose center and its adjacent plaza, both located on the north facade of the Museum, are regarded as some of Manhattan's most outstanding recent architectural additions. The facility encloses 333,500 square feet of research, education, and exhibition space as well as the Hayden planetarium.

The gift/book shop is just incredible; a fabulous place to get a gift for anyone. The cafeteria in the basement caters to most with a grill, sushi bar, pasta station, salad bar, and entrees. There are smaller gift shops & cafe's throughout the museum

This is a very good museum. It's very interesting with tons of things to look at and its big enough that it's possible to get lost.

Little known fact: The suggested price is just that, suggested. I paid the full suggestion as I can afford it, but if you can't, let the ticket seller know.

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Yesterday I played hooky from work and wow am I glad that I did. I hadn't been to the American Museum of Natural History since I was in the 7th or 8th grade. All I really remembered about the museum was the

The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), located on the Upper West Side, Manhattan, New York, USA, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world. Located on park-like grounds, the museum comprises 25 interconnected buildings that house 46 permanent exhibition halls, research laboratories, and its renowned library. The collections contain over 32 million specimens of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time.

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This is a great museum, especially if you have children. If you don’t have children don’t worry thousands little devils will be around you anyway trying to scream as loud as they can to break your nerves! lol It seems that a lot of NY schools were there the day I visited the museum but it was nice and funny been there anyway.

The museum was built in 1869 and it’s huge! The Dinosaurs (pic 1) and the extra big blue whale are the must see items but there are a lot more about animals, earth, human evolution etc We had some good time at the planetarium space show (check out the times though) but what I enjoyed most was the Hall of North American Mammals (pic 2) with some extra detailed dioramas of the area that every mammal lives and we probably will never be.

The entrance fee is $22 but it was for free with the Citypass. The museum is opened daily