The American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History is one museum here in the city that isn't open late any days of the week, nor do they have any special or discount admission times, so I went on Saturday afternoon. I'd only been once before but I wanted to check out the Butterfly Conservatory and I've never met a natural history museum I didn't like.
The AMNH ranks among the best ones I've ever been to (including the Field Museum in Chicago, and probably for nostalgia reasons, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History). Their dioramas are definitely my favorite exhibits, and they have so many that I haven't even heard of a lot of the animals on display. I love taxidermy and dioramas in general, but the AMNH's are particularly exquisite. I especially like the wooden display cases and the metal type used to label most of them. It all feels antique and incredibly special.
I think I was most at awe over the Alaskan brown bears — they are so unbelievably enormous and terrifying, even behind glass and, well, not alive. But if you ever really want to feel humbled and tiny, pay a visit to the ocean room with its to-scale model of a blue whale hanging from the ceiling. The animal kingdom is nutso, but the ocean world is even weirder.
I highly recommend paying a visit to the museum, if only to see the Butterfly Conservatory, open until May. It's tiny, but packed with the most beautiful (and friendly!) butterflies and moths I've ever seen.
As a bonus it's super warm inside the Conservatory, which was a welcome escape from the cold and wind. The lighting is kind of strange and it was pretty packed when I was there, but it's really cool to see such beautiful, and oftentimes elusive, creatures up close and personal.
One dude even landed on my arm and was content to hang out while people took his/her photo (myself included). I'm pretty squeamish around bugs and sometimes I realize that butterflies are just huge flying insects with gross curly mouths and hairy legs and I would be lying if I didn't say I was a bit relieved when he/she finally departed my sweater for a rotting banana (or whatever else butterflies like to land on).
The one thing that's disappointed me both times I've been to the museum, however, is its dinosaur collection. It's not the quality or the quantity — from what I can tell they're both top-notch — but I think it's the way they're displayed that I don't love. Most everything is behind glass, which I totally understand, but there's something modern or distracting about the exhibits that I feel takes away from the fossils and skeletons themselves. I actually prefer Cleveland's method of display, but maybe that's because I've been going to that museum since I was a toddler, and I don't think their exhibits haven't changed at all since then, which seems right for a natural history museum.
The AMNH is huge and I was there for about three hours before I was so exhausted and tired of screaming children that I headed home for a nap. It's only four subway stops from the apartment, and right across from my very favorite spots in Central Park — the views from the fourth floor are not to be missed. I would love to go back on a weekday or figure out another time to go that wasn't so crowded, but alas I have one of those pesky day jobs that doesn't allow for 3+ hour museum trips in the middle of the day.
Maybe they need some extra help spraying down the butterfly habitats or checking people as they leave for escapees (these are real jobs, you guys) — I know there's at least one moth that would vouch for me.