American Museum of Natural History – New York Attractions
The American Museum of Natural History is somewhere I’ve been meaning to go to for a while, and with my daughter finally at the age (8) where a visit to a museum could be interesting rather than torture, we decided to go for it on our recent trip to New York.
With 5 floors (there’s an exhibition space on the lower level where all the food outlets are), it’s a lot to cover and on reflection we probably needed more time than we had allocated.
Dinosaurs!
Some mighty big bones!
Once we’d decided on the temporary exhibits we wanted to see (more on those later), we headed straight for the fourth floor fossil halls to check out the dinosaur skeletons. Blown away doesn’t begin to cover our amazement as we saw fossils of all shapes and sizes, together with information panels and touch screens to help us get the most of the information. The evolutionary timelines were fascinating, though in my opinion it was hard to top the grandeur of the T Rex. My second favorite fossils? The majestic mammoths, of course, and not just because I’m a huge fan of Jean Auel’s Earth’s Children series. To top off the dinosaur overload, we headed downstairs to check out the World’s Largest Dinosaurs exhibit and get hands-on with some huge sauropods. Great presentations and interactive stations made this a hit with the whole family. It’s open till January, so there’s still time to visit if you haven’t seen it.
Dioramas – Not My Cup of Tea
We also had a quick look at the dioramas, some of which were great, though the stuffed animals creeped me out a bit. It turned out that my daughter felt the same about the stuffed birds and other animals in the Hall of North American Birds, so we skated on by those to look at primates, reptiles and amphibians. I don’t know why, but I found I could handle the idea of stuffed crocodiles and gators much better. 
Next, we headed to the food court to choose among the wide range of options and managed to find a seat in a far corner. (Note to self: next time, don’t visit in August!)
Inside the Brain
Lunch over, it was time to head to our next pre-booked exhibit – Brain: The Inside Story. This was a fascinating exhibit with videos and interactive stations covering all aspects of brain function. It started with a bang as we walked through a hall simulating the firing of synapses in the brain, then we saw brain scans, checked out neurons, examined language and saw a presentation showing how the various parts of the brain worked together. It was excellent!
By the time that was over, we’d been at the museum for several hours and had started to run out of steam, so we opted to miss out on the Frogs: A Chorus of Colors exhibit and head home. As you can see, we barely covered a third of what was on offer, but you have to be selective to avoid brain overload. Next time, I’ll get there earlier so I can check out some of the permanent exhibits we missed as well as any new special exhibitions. Having been there, the American Museum of Natural History is firmly on my list of top New York attractions.
Tags: Attractions, new york attraction, us travel
