The American Museum Of Natural History Will Remove All Human Remains From Display, Vowing Policy Change

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City will remove human remains from its displays and has vowed to make policy changes after recent reports raised concerns about legality and ethics of their acquisition.

Erin Thompson, a professor of art crime at John Jay College of the City University of New York, had investigated the museum’s collection of the remains for a report published by Hyperallergic on October 15.

The removal was announced in a news release before Thompson’s report was published. The bones will be taken out of the museum’s displays over the course of the next eight weeks and the policies will be updated to recognize the importance of returning human remains.

Sean Decatur, the museum’s recently appointed president, said the museum holds the remains of about 12,000 individuals in its collection and there are currently 12 cases displaying them. He called the removal the “right course of action.”

“The museum no longer collects human remains. Non-invasive research on the collection is permitted only after community consultation and consent, and the moratorium on destructive analysis is continuing,” the news release reads. “We commit to the removal of human remains from public display, while continuing to display casts where appropriate to further the museum’s education mission.”

Decatur said discussions about the museum’s collection began before he was appointed in April and he has called the changes just “initial steps” in addressing the problematic remains. The human remains in the collection range from instruments and beads made from human bone to skeletons and mummies.

Thompson said she spent months investigating the museum after receiving an anonymous tip from a staff member and that she was surprised by the lack of publicly available information about the remains.

“They won’t tell you any information about just who these individuals are,” Thompson told NPR. “Where did they come from? How did they get these remains?”

About 26 percent of the remains belong to Native Americans from within the United States with about 1,200 of them housed there by the federal government, Decatur said. Another 2,200 skeletons are managed by the museum’s cultural resources office in accordance with the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which requires the return of such remains to Native American communities.

To date, the museum has returned about 1,000 such remains and another 200 internationally.

Thompson added that museums like the AMNH had collected and used human remains for scientific research rooted in eugenics and racism: “They were looking for physical proof of the superiority of white people and they didn’t find it, but that meant they just kept looking.”

Decatur agreed with Thompson, stating that the museum must acknowledge that “no individual consented to have their remains included in a museum collection” with the small exception of those who bequeathed their bodies to medical schools for continued study.

“Human remains collections were made possible by extreme imbalances of power,” he said. “Moreover, many researchers in the 19th and 20th centuries then used such collections to advance deeply flawed scientific agendas rooted in white supremacy—namely the identification of physical differences that could reinforce models of racial hierarchy.”

Decatur specifically addressed a recent report in The New York TimesThe New York Times, highlighting that some of the remains may have belonged to enslaved African Americans.

“These remains were removed from a burial ground in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan during a city road construction project in 1903–04 and accepted into the collection,” Decatur affirmed.

“Enslavement was a violent, dehumanizing act; removing these remains from their rightful burial place ensured that the denial of basic human dignity would continue even in death. Identifying a restorative, respectful action in consultation with local communities must be part of our commitment.”

Decatur told museum staffers that the remains will further be discussed at an all-staff meeting, which was scheduled for today. It was not immediately clear how the meeting went.

Thompson has since shared a database she created to help people discover whether the remains of their ancestors are in the museum’s collection. She said she has found information for about 10,500 of the remains.

Source: https://news.artnet.com/about/adam-schrader-34468

Renovated American Museum Of Natural History In New York Showcases Indigenous Perspectives

In his first visit to the American Museum of Natural History, Morgan Guerin had a list. Not of things he wanted to check out, though — a list of things that he hated.

It started with seeing certain regalia from his Musqueam Indian Band — sacred objects not intended for public display — in the museum’s Northwest Coast Hall.

This wasn’t just any visit. Guerin was there at the museum’s invitation in 2017 for the start of a project to renovate the hall, incorporating Indigenous perspectives. For him and representatives of other Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest and western Canada, the 5-year, $19-million renovation of the Northwest Coast Hall, which reopened to the public Friday, was an opportunity to tell their stories themselves.

“Our people are very, very tired of being ‘studied,’ because the misconception of who we are has always been the outside community’s downfall,” he said. “We have always been here, ready to tell people who we are.”

The hall was the museum’s first gallery, opened in 1899 under the auspices of Franz Boas, an anthropologist who was deeply interested in the Indigenous cultures of the Northwest and western coastal Canada. Boas was also a proponent of what was then a revolutionary idea that different cultures should be looked at in their own right and not on some kind of comparative scale.

It had largely remained unchanged, though, since the early 1900s. When museum officials decided it was time to renovate, they knew they couldn’t do it without input from the people whose cultures are on display.

“A lot of what we did was trying to bring this historic collection to the 21st century, and that’s by telling new stories with active voices in all of these communities and nations,” said Lauri Halderman, vice president for exhibition.

The museum brought together representatives of the Indigenous communities to talk about what the gallery should contain and what it should look like for the showcase of 10 Pacific Northwest tribal nations.

It wasn’t a simple process, made even less so by the impact of the pandemic, which forced remote instead of in-person collaborations.

“We didn’t really have a process or roadmap in front of us. We had to figure that out as we went ... it’s hard work,” Halderman said. “But I think it was validated beyond all expectation when everybody came and said how proud they were.”

The hall includes some iconic pieces that anyone who has been to the museum will remember — including a massive 63-foot-long canoe that for decades was placed outside the hall but has now been brought in and suspended from the ceiling along with several giant carvings.

In what’s new, items on display are accompanied by text in both English and Indigenous languages and the hall includes a gallery section showing how younger Indigenous artists are using motifs and designs from prior generations. There’s also a video piece with people talking about the tribes’ pasts, and their concerns in the present.

There remains the fundamental question of whether museums should be holding these collections and trying to tell these stories in the first place, given the role that theft and colonialization has played in building them, and the way Indigenous communities have been treated.

Museums “seem to function as very expensive, and in the case of the American Museum of Natural History, maybe the most expensive, trophy cases in the world,” said Haa’yuups, co-curator of the hall, who is Head of the House of Taḳiishtaḳamlthat-ḥ, of the Huupa‘chesat-ḥ First Nation.

He said, “They seem to have a meta-language about them or a meta-message: ‘Aren’t we powerful? Don’t we go forth and dominate the world?’”

Haa’yuups saw his involvement as a way to help spur a difference, to get people thinking about whether the items on display would be better served by being with the people they came from.

“Does it make sense to have a bunch of people who have nothing to do with those objects, to have them spend their lives managing them?” he said. “Or does it make sense to send those treasures back to the communities where they come from?”

It’s an issue the museum has and is continuing to grapple with, said Peter Whiteley, curator of North American ethnology. He said the institution, which has repatriated items over the years, had decided through the renovation process that it was willing to do some additional limited repatriation and develop greater collaboration between the museum and native tribes.

Deeper questions notwithstanding, members of the Indigenous nations and museum staff who took part in the process said it showed what’s possible in terms of collaboration and listening to Indigenous voices.

“The best thing about this, the result of these consultants from the different native tribes,” said David Boxley, representing the Tsimshian tribe, “is that it’s our voice speaking.”

Contributed by DEEPTI HAJELA

Sharks, A New American Museum of Natural History Exhibition, Opens December 15

Featuring Dozens of Life-Sized Models Ranging from 33 Feet to 5 Inches Long, New Exhibition Brings Visitors Face to Face with Vast Diversity of Shark Species, From the Ancient Megapredator Megalodon to the Tiny Pocket Shark

Opens to Museum Members on December 10 and to the Public on December 15

People have been fascinated by sharks for as long as we have been exploring the oceans. Fixed in the public imagination as toothy, fearsome predators, sharks are far more fascinating and more complex, than their description in popular culture. Sharks, a new exhibition opening at the American Museum of Natural History this winter, will bring to life the incredible diversity of this ancient group of fishes and will offer visitors a unique look at pre-historic and modern shark species, their habitats and hunting styles, and the conservation threats these magnificent animals are facing today.

The evolutionary history of sharks began nearly 450 million years ago, more than 200 million years before the first dinosaur. Today, there are more than 500 species of sharks and more than 650 species of their close relatives—rays, skates, and chimaeras—inhabiting nearly all of the world’s aquatic environments, from coral reefs to the polar seas, and even freshwater rivers. While the terrifying monster from the movie Jaws is what many might imagine when they think of sharks, today’s scientists are uncovering many surprising facts about this diverse group. Convinced that all sharks are carnivores? (Fact: Recent research shows that bonnethead sharks eat seagrass and can digest plants). Where do great white sharks give birth to their young? (Fact: By tracking females, scientists recently discovered a great white shark nursery off the coast of Long Island, New York). Can shark tourism be more profitable than shark fishing? (Fact: where fishing and ecotourism are regulated, tourism can support shark communities for generations. In fact, a single whale shark has been shown to bring thousands of more dollars as a beacon for tourism than could be earned by killing it). Sharks addresses these exciting questions and reveals more secrets of the ocean’s top predators through life-sized models, touch-free interactives, real fossils, and dynamic media presentations.

Visitors to Sharks will explore the diversity, anatomy, and behavior of sharks and their close relatives through encounters with tiger sharks, great whites, and other familiar favorites along with little-known creatures such as the torpedo ray, the longnose chimaera, and the tiny dwarf lantern shark, which glows in the dark and is small enough to hold in your hand. The exhibition will showcase fossils from the Museum’s extensive collections, current Museum research, and a spectacular “parade” of sharks highlighting the diversity of ancient and modern shark species through 30 lifelike models that range from 33 feet to 5 inches long, including the prehistoric megapredator megalodon, the “Tyrannosaurus rex of the seas,” which was so large it preyed on whales. Other exhibition highlights include an interactive that challenges visitors to hunt like a hammerhead and touch-free media that reveals distinctive shark traits with the wave of a hand. Sharks also delves into the serious conservation issues facing sharks today, including overfishing and habitat destruction, demonstrating that while these amazing animals pose few threats to people, we represent a serious danger to them.

Sharks is curated by John Sparks, curator in the Museum’s Department of Ichthyology in the Division of Vertebrate Zoology, who previously curated Unseen Oceans, which explored the latest ocean science, and Creatures of Light: Nature’s Bioluminescence, which focused on the diversity of organisms that produce light. He also co-curated Life at the Limits: Stories of Amazing Species, about organisms with surprising abilities and those that thrive in extreme habitats. Sparks’ recent research explores the role that bioluminescence and biofluorescence play in the diversification of both shallow-reef and deep-sea fishes. His current projects include investigating the evolution and function of bioluminescent signaling systems in ponyfishes (Leiognathidae), lanternfishes (Myctophiformes), and dragonfishes (Stomiiformes), the origins of Madagascar’s freshwater and nearshore marine fishes, and the evolution and function of biofluorescence in marine fishes. Sharks has also drawn on the expertise of John Maisey, curator-in-charge emeritus, fossil fish, Division of Paleontology, whose research focuses on early chondrichthyans and shark evolution.

American Museum of Natural History (amnh.org) The American Museum of Natural History, founded in 1869, is one of the world’s preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. The Museum encompasses more than 40 permanent exhibition halls, including those in the Rose Center for Earth and Space, and the Hayden Planetarium, as well as galleries for temporary exhibitions. The Museum’s scientists draw on a world-class permanent collection of more than 34 million specimens and artifacts, some of which are billions of years old, and on one of the largest natural history libraries in the world. Through its Richard Gilder Graduate School, the Museum grants the Ph.D. degree in Comparative Biology and the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree, the only such freestanding, degree-granting program at any museum in the United States. The Museum’s website, digital videos, and apps for mobile devices bring its collections, exhibitions, and educational programs to millions around the world. Visit amnh.org for more information.

Hours The Museum is open Wednesday-Sunday, 10 am–5:30 pm. The Museum is closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Admission Museum admission is free to all New York City school and camp groups. New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut residents (with ID) have the option to pay what they wish for General Admission; the reservation must be made online and the transaction must be completed at the Museum ticket counter.

General Admission, which includes admission to all permanent exhibition halls and the Rose Center for Earth and Space but does not include special exhibitions, giant-screen 2D or 3D film, or Space Show, is $23 (adults), $18 (students/seniors), and $13 (children ages 3-12). All prices are subject to change.

Health Protocols The Museum maintains COVID-19 protocols to protect the health and safety of visitors and has taken steps to maintain a safe environment, including requiring facial coverings for visitors ages 2 and up and upgrading ventilation. As of August 25, 2021, in accordance with the New York City vaccination requirement, visitors ages 12 and older must be vaccinated against COVID-19 to enter the Museum and show proof of vaccination. Personal identification is required for visitors ages 18 and over. Visit amnh.org/plan-your-visit/covid-19-visitors-staff for more information about these and other health and safety protocols.

Public Information
For additional information, the public may call 212-769-5100 or visit the Museum’s website at amnh.org.

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NYC Chinatown Museum Reopens With Anti-Asian Racism Exhibit

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City museum dedicated to telling Chinese American history marked its reopening to the public on Wednesday, with an exhibit on Asian Americans and racism that it curated partially through submissions gathered during the pandemic and a surge of anti-Asian bias incidents around the country.

The opening was a long time coming for the Museum of Chinese in America, not only because of the pandemic shutdown of over a year but because of a fire that ravaged though the space where its collection was housed in January 2020. Luckily, most of the collection was salvaged.

Looking back, there was a question of “how were we going to survive, but we kept pivoting,” said Nancy Yao Maasbach, the museum’s president.

That included a lot of virtual programming, including the call for submissions that became part of “Responses: Asian American Voices Resisting the Tides of Racism,” opening to the public on Thursday.

In the exhibition, the outer walls are a running history of sorts, a timeline showcasing the racism and bigotry that’s been turned toward Asian and Asian Americans throughout their generations in the U.S.

They touch on the treatment of the earliest Asian immigrant communities, how stereotypes connecting them and disease have a long history, to more recent issues like the treatment of Middle Eastern and South Asian communities in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The anti-Asian bias of the pandemic is on display, with a timeline including top government officials using anti-Asian slurs as names for the coronavirus and blaming China for its existence.

There’s also a listing of various attacks that had Asian victims, like the shootings at spa businesses in Georgia in March, where six women of Asian descent were among the eight people killed.

In the center of the show are items collected by the museum showing how Asian Americans have tried to push back against bias in the past year, like photographer Mike Keo’s series of images of Asian Americans sharing their identities with the hashtag, #IAMNOTAVIRUS.

Another piece is a collection of yellow whistles, which visitors are encouraged to take. Dr. Agnes Hsu-Tang and Oscar Tang founded the Yellow Whistle Project this year, offering the items as a security measure in case help is needed and making them yellow in a reference to how the color has been weaponized as a xenophobic slur against Asian Americans.

It was important to include both the history and the pandemic-related material, said Herb Tam, curator and director of exhibits at the museum.

“We felt like even though the submissions since April 2020 were really wonderful ... it wouldn’t have been enough,” he said, and they wanted the exhibition to “make people aware of how this is not new, the way that Asians have been made to feel foreign, or the way we have been scapegoated for a disease.”

The opening didn’t come without controversy. Two artists who had been slated to have their images of Chinatown in Oakland, California, in the show pulled their photos in recent days, following a similar action from other artists in a show the museum was supposed to have put on last year.

The artists, Colin Chin and Nicholas Liem, withdrew their work over a controversy about a contested city plan to site a new jail facility in Chinatown. In talking about the overall project, the city said MOCA would be getting $35 million toward its capital needs, which critics of the jail plan have used to condemn the museum.

The museum has been adamant that it does not support the jail, and Yao Massbach said it had been asking the city for capital funds for several years before the controversy.

Liem, speaking to The Associated Press from Seoul, South Korea, wasn’t convinced. “You can’t say you’re against something while financially benefitting from it,” he said.

At the press event for the new exhibit on Wednesday, protesters could plainly be heard from the street outside, at times right up next to the clear windows at the front of the building.

Tam called the artists’ withdrawal “disheartening” and the controversy was being fueled by “mischaracterizations.”

By DEEPTI HAJELA

American Museum of Natural History - New Halls Of Gems And Minerals Opening June 12

One of the most popular and beloved spaces in New York City’s museums will return to public view, completely redesigned and reinstalled, with the opening of the Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History on Saturday, June 12, 2021. A sparkling showcase for the Museum’s world-renowned collection and an engaging guide to current scientific knowledge about our dynamic planet, the 11,000-square-foot Halls are among the first major new cultural facilities to welcome the public as New York reopens.

Reservations to visit the Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals are included in a General Admission ticket and are available now at ticketing.amnh.org.

Telling the fascinating story of how minerals in their vast diversity formed on Earth, and how humans have used them throughout the millennia for personal adornment, tools, and technology, the Halls’ exhibits include:

a gallery of dazzling gems, including the legendary 563-carat Star of India sapphire, gem crystals like the 632-carat Patricia Emerald, and the Organdie necklace designed by Michelle Ong for Carnet with 110 carats of diamonds, fabulous new specimens, many never before exhibited, including a pair of towering, sparkling amethyst geodes that are among the world’s largest on display, a slice of a 35-million-year-old metasequoia (a petrified dawn redwood from the Cascade Mountains), the 9-pound almandine Subway Garnet discovered under Manhattan’s 35th Street in 1885, and the Tarugo, a 3-foot-tall cranberry-red elbaite tourmaline that is one of the most fantastic mineral crystal clusters ever found, interactive displays illustrating the science of mineralogy, including a dynamic periodic table of chemical elements that demonstrates how they “make minerals” and a temporary exhibition space, the Melissa and Keith Meister Gallery, opening with Beautiful Creatures, an unprecedented display of exquisite historic and contemporary jewelry inspired by animals.

“New Yorkers and visitors have long embraced these Halls as one of the City’s treasures,” said Ellen V. Futter, President of the American Museum of Natural History. “Now, with this complete redesign made possible by Allison and Roberto Mignone, the Halls are more spectacular than ever and an even greater resource for learning about the processes that shape our changing planet and make it so endlessly fascinating. With their opening, we not only mark a signal moment in the resurgence of New York City and the renewal of its cultural life, but also, we hope, accelerate its pace.”

The Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals are named in honor of Allison and Roberto Mignone, longtime Museum supporters and volunteers. Roberto Mignone is a Museum Trustee and Allison Mignone is vice chair of the Museum’s Campaign.

“When you enter the Halls, you truly feel as if you’ve walked into the world’s jewelry box,” said Allison Mignone. “Currently, my favorite spot is standing in front of the 10-ton rock from the Sterling Mine in New Jersey. Although it may look unassuming in daylight, when it is washed in ultraviolet light, the rock’s brilliance comes alive with fluorescence of red and green. It is simply breathtaking and has to be experienced in person. These Halls, and others in the Museum, take science off the page of textbooks and into the real-life experience of countless families and students. Now more than ever, equal access to education is paramount. We look forward to the time when large numbers of students and school groups and their teachers can visit. Halls like these are crucial and tangible tools that communicate the incredible variety of minerals on Earth and how they relate to our lives.”

Organized by Curator George E. Harlow of the Museum’s Division of Physical Sciences, the exhibits in the redesigned Halls are arranged to show the geological conditions and processes by which minerals form: igneous, pegmatitic, metamorphic, hydrothermal, and weathering. As part of this construct, the Halls introduce a concept that has developed over the past 15 years: mineral evolution.
Recognizing that there were no minerals at all for hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang, the concept explains how our planet today came to host more than 5,500 mineral species. The process
began with supernovae infusing the universe with more and heavier elements, which could combine into minerals. The formation of planets enabled the differentiation of these minerals, mostly in the form of molten rocks heading to the surface. On Earth, as new mineral-forming environments arose—with the accumulation of liquid water, for example, or the introduction of free oxygen into the atmosphere by the first photosynthetic organisms—minerals diversified in color, texture, and chemical composition. Organisms contain, produce, and use minerals, and new minerals have formed because of life. (See release on science in the Halls).

“When I started at the Museum, there were probably 2,500 minerals described—and now there are more than 5,500 minerals,” said George E. Harlow. “The enhanced Halls present up-to-date science, which has progressed significantly. I look forward to seeing visitors delight in remarkable gems and mineral specimens from across the globe and our own backyard, like those in the Minerals of New York City display featuring specimens from all five boroughs.”

Hall Highlights

The redesigned Halls feature more than 5,000 specimens sourced from 98 countries. In addition to those already mentioned, highlights include:

the Singing Stone, a massive block of vibrant blue azurite and green malachite from Arizona, first exhibited at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, a wall-sized panel of fluorescent rock that glows in shades of orange and green, sourced from Sterling Hill in New Jersey, The Butterfly of Peace, 240 colored diamonds arranged in a symmetrical pattern of similar cuts and colors, A nearly 600-pound specimen of topaz from Minas Gerais, Brazil, one of the largest single crystals of topaz in any museum in the world, an ancient block of orbicular granite featuring unusual ball-shaped, concentric clusters of crystals, sourced from one of Earth’s oldest enduring landmasses, the 2.7-billion-year-old Yilgarn Craton in Western Australia, a spectacular specimen of yellow fluorite retrieved from the Moscona Mine in the Asturias region of northwest Spain, which grew after hot water dissolved layers of limestone, and later deposited cubic crystals coated with glistening pyrite in the empty space, An iridescent block of labradorite from Madagascar made up of large crystals of feldspar that display vibrant colors with changes in viewing angle, a slab of amphibolite rock containing huge almandine garnet crystals that formed more than a billion years ago, sourced from Gore Mountain in upstate New York, a 1.8-billion-year-old assemblage of dravite tourmaline crystals, one of the oldest pieces in the Hall, which formed in present-day Western Australia in solid metamorphic rock, a massive 5-foot beryl crystal section, sourced from the Bumpus Quarry in Albany, Maine, And weighing almost half a ton and showcasing hundreds of swordlike crystals, one of the largest stibnite specimens on public display, from southeastern China.

Beautiful Creatures Inaugural Temporary Exhibition

Inaugurating the Melissa and Keith Meister Gallery, the first temporary exhibition space to be built in any of the Museum’s permanent halls, the American Museum of Natural History will present Beautiful Creatures. Featuring some of the world’s most spectacular jewelry pieces inspired by animal forms and curated by jewelry historian Marion Fasel, the special exhibition will be on view through September 19, 2021.

“Beautiful Creatures is devoted to animal-themed jewelry designs created over the last 150 years,” said Marion Fasel. “The timeframe dovetails with the founding of the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 1869. The institution, and others like it around the world, actively contributed to the public’s exposure to and subsequent fascination with the study and science of nature, particularly the animal kingdom, which, in all its remarkable diversity, has promised never to lose its allure for jewelry designers.”

Beautiful Creatures features imaginative designs by the world’s great jewelry houses and artisans—from Cartier’s iconic panthers to Suzanne Belperron’s butterflies. The sparkling pieces on view range in date from the mid-19th century to the present, and displays are arranged into categories of animals observed in the air, water, and on land.

Exhibition Design

The Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals are designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates with Davis Brody Bond as architects, together with the American Museum of Natural History’s award-winning Exhibition Department under the direction of Lauri Halderman, vice president for exhibition.

The three main divisions of the layout are the Gem Hall, the Mineral Hall, and the Melissa and Keith Meister Gallery for temporary exhibitions.

The Gem Hall includes a display of nearly 2,500 objects from the Museum’s world-class collection. These include precious stones, carvings, and stunning jewelry from around the world that were fashioned from naturally beautiful minerals. In addition to the Star of India sapphire and the Patricia Emerald, specimens on view will include the DeLong Star Ruby, a 100.3-carat ruby from Myanmar; the Brazilian Princess topaz, a 221-facet, 9.5-pound pale blue topaz that once was the largest cut gem in the world; and a carving of the Buddhist deity Guan Yin in lavender jadeite jade, fashioned in China during the late Qing Dynasty.

The Mineral Hall comprises four sections. Mineral Forming Environments is a set of cases in the center of the Hall dedicated to the environments and processes by which minerals form: igneous, pegmatitic, metamorphic, hydrothermal, and weathering. At the four corners, Mineral Fundamentals displays explore the overarching concepts of mineral sciences, from the evolution and diversification of minerals to their properties to how they have been used by humans from prehistory to the present day. Systematic Classification, a display running along the west wall, contains 659 specimens that represent the chemical classification system that scientists use to organize Earth’s more than 5,500 mineral species, as well as an interactive feature in which visitors can explore forming minerals from the elements on the periodic table. Finally, Minerals & Light, a room off the east wall, explores the optical properties of minerals—their interaction with light.

A state-of-the-art lighting system throughout the Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals uses cool and warm full-spectrum LEDs and sophisticated lighting controls to reveal the rich texture, color, and reflectivity of the diverse objects on display. Additionally, short- and long-wave ultraviolet sources are utilized to reveal spectacular colors in fluorescent minerals. Visitors will experience the incredible depth and character of the striking minerals and gems on display in a calibrated, dramatic lighting environment.

Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Museum

The Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals are a striking complement to the David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth and the Hayden Planetarium in the Rose Center for Earth and Space, and the Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites. The Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth illustrates the evolution and inner workings of our dynamic planet with outstanding geological specimens and interactive exhibits on climate change, while the Hayden Planetarium educates visitors about the latest space science through immersive presentations such as the Museum’s new Space Show Worlds Beyond Earth. The Ross Hall of Meteorites—which is immediately adjacent to the Mignone Halls—explores the origins of our solar system through holdings from the Museum’s world-class collection of meteorites, which contain some of the same minerals found on Earth.

This public-facing work is overseen by curators in the Museum’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, who conduct research in the fields of mineralogy, petrology, geochemistry, ocean science, and cosmochemistry. The department’s researchers study topics that include the origin of rubies in Southeast Asia; using corals to reveal how our oceans have changed over time; and the mineral and chemical origins of solar systems, especially the transformation of interstellar minerals into the building blocks of asteroids, comets, and meteorites. The collections of the department, which include minerals, gems, and meteorites, hold more than 120,000 specimens.

The Mignone Halls as an Educational Resource

The Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals were designed as a vital educational resource for school and camp groups, educators, and students of all ages to learn about the mineral sciences of our dynamic planet. The reimagined Halls were developed to support New York State and national science education standards, which recognize the interdisciplinary nature of evidence-based science. The scientific disciplines manifested through the Halls’ exhibits include Earth science (with content about how minerals form), chemistry (including an interactive periodic table), physics (with a gallery focused on the interaction between light and minerals), biology (including the role of life in the evolution and abundance of Earth’s minerals), and more.

These Halls play a key role in the Museum’s Masters of Art in Teaching program, which prepares highly qualified Earth science teachers for grades 7-12 in high-needs schools in New York City and throughout the State. Participants in the program utilize the Halls throughout their instruction and tap into them as a tangible teaching tool for their own classes upon graduation. Since the MAT program launched in 2012, 124 MAT teachers have graduated from the program and teach thousands of students each year.

American Museum of Natural History 150th Anniversary Projects

The Halls have undergone renovation as part of the physical and programmatic initiatives undertaken in conjunction with the 150th anniversary celebration of the Museum, which was founded in 1869.

These projects will culminate in the opening of the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, a major new facility, designed by Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang. The spectacular, 230,000-square-foot facility will add exhibition galleries, state-of-the-art classrooms, an immersive theater, and a redesigned library, revealing more of the Museum’s scientific collections and linking 10 Museum buildings to improve visitor flow throughout the campus. The section of the Museum that houses the Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals had long been a cul-de-sac, which could be entered and exited only from the south end. In the future, the Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals will be linked to the new Gilder Center, allowing visitors to circulate with greater ease and less congestion.

The Museum is also working on updating, restoring, and conserving the Northwest Coast Hall to enrich the interpretation of the gallery’s exhibits.

American Museum Of Natural History In New York – New Halls Of Gems and Minerals Announcement

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AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY TO DESIGN ALL-NEW HALLS OF GEMS AND MINERALS DESIGNED TO REFLECT NEW SCIENCE AND TO ENHANCE THE VISITOR EXPERIENCE, THE NEW HALLS WILL BE NAMED FOR ALLISON AND ROBERTO MIGNONE 12-FOOT-TALL AMETHYST GEODE UNVEILED AS ONE OF THE NEW HALLS’ FEATURED SPECIMENS (C)AMNH/D.FINNIN

The American Museum of Natural History announced today that it will undertake  a complete redesign of its popular Morgan Memorial Hall of Gems and Harry Frank Guggenheim Hall of Minerals to transform the 11,000-square-foot space into a gleaming showcase for a world-renowned collection. With new large-scale specimens, the  redesigned exhibits will tell the fascinating story of how approximately 4,500 different  types of minerals arose on our dynamic planet, how scientists classify them, and how  humans have fashioned them into gems and used them throughout history for personal adornment, tools, and technology. The halls will be named for Roberto and Allison Mignone, long-standing Museum supporters and volunteers. Roberto Mignone is a Museum  Trustee and Allison Mignone is Vice Chair of the Museum’s Campaign. To celebrate this historic redesign, the Museum unveiled one of the new halls’ featured specimens: a sparkling 12-foot-tall amethyst geode, recently acquired from Uruguay,  which will be on temporary view in the Museum’s Grand Gallery through the 2017 holiday season. The geode, which will be a centerpiece in the new halls, is among the largest amethyst geodes in the world. The renovation of the Halls of Gems and Minerals, which are being designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates, is part of a series of physical and programmatic enhancements to historic parts of the institution leading up to its 150th anniversary and the opening of the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, a major new facility that will house resources for education, exhibition, research, and reveal modern science to  visitors of all ages. On September 25, the Museum announced a multi-year project to  update, restore, and conserve the Northwest Coast Hall and to enrich the interpretation  of that gallery’s exhibits. “Whether you’re talking about the spectacular 563-carat Star of India sapphire or the  unique almandine ‘subway garnet’ unearthed in New York City in 1885, the American  Museum of Natural History is known for having one of the most spectacular and comprehensive collections of gems and minerals in the world,” said Ellen V. Futter,  Museum President. “Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of Allison and Roberto  Mignone, we will now highlight these specimens in new exhibits illuminating the latest  scientific thinking and revealing the spectacular beauty of objects from cultures across  the globe.” George E. Harlow, curator in the Museum’s Division of Physical Sciences, is curating  the Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals. “Forty-plus years ago, when the current  galleries were designed, scientists had not yet begun to explore the concept of mineral evolution,” said Harlow. “Today, we work within a different framework, where much of the diversity of minerals on our dynamic planet is directly connected to the evolution of life. Our new exhibits will allow us to tell how the story of minerals is linked with their natural environment and biology on the one hand and with culture and technology on the other.” “Our involvement in the Museum’s educational programs has had a transformative  impact on our family, how we see the world, and how we understand our place in it,”  said Allison Mignone. “We’re thrilled to support the next generation of visitors in their explorations of the natural world, understanding of cutting-edge science, and discovery  of the stories behind the spectacular specimens of gems and minerals drawn from the Museum’s world-class collections and newly added exhibits for this gallery.” While the Halls of Gems and Minerals previously formed a cul-de-sac, they will feature a dramatic link, via a stunning Crystalline Pass on the north side of the halls, to the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, the new facility designed by  Studio Gang Architects. Construction on the new Mignone Halls of Gems of Minerals will begin with the closure of the current halls on October 26. Gems and Minerals at the Museum The American Museum of Natural History is home to a collection of about 105,000  minerals and 5,000 gems, which is acknowledged to be one of world’s greatest. Minerals  and gems have been displayed in several different galleries over the years. Until 1974,  the J. Pierpont Morgan Memorial Hall of Minerals and Gems on the fourth floor was the primary display and storage area. In May 1976, the current Guggenheim Hall of Minerals  and Morgan Memorial Hall of Gems opened on the Museum’s first floor. Inside the Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals The Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals will feature new large-scale acquisitions,  including two amethyst geodes, visitor favorites such as the Star of India sapphire and  the Patricia Emerald, and treasures from the collection that have not been on view for decades. These exhibits will tell the stories of how minerals form, how scientists interpret  them, and how they are used by humans for decoration and personal adornment as well  as for science and for technology. Elements currently planned for the Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals include: A “Crystal Garden” main exhibition area with signature large-scale specimens collected from around the world, including two towering amethyst geodes from Uruguay, a 12-foot-tall geode and a 9-foot-tall geode. Mineral formation zones highlighting a variety of processes and environments that shape mineral formation  will frame these iconic specimens A gem gallery with a case containing the Museum’s most precious gems, including  the Star of India (the world’s largest and most famous blue star sapphire) and  the 632-carat Patricia Emerald (a rare example of a large, gem-quality emerald  to be preserved uncut) A systematics display wall showing the classification of minerals and highlighting  the breadth of the Museum’s collection A case dedicated to the minerals of New York City, including the “subway  garnet”—a 9-pound almandine garnet unearthed during a sewer dig on 35th Street in 1885 Large-scale media projections and interactive displays with time-lapse imagery, colorful animations, and dramatic shifts in scale to introduce key ideas about  mineral and gem properties A dedicated space for temporary exhibitions with the potential to highlight   humanity’s fascination with particular minerals and gems as well as the fact  that the same atmospheric conditions made possible both the diversity of minerals  and the diversity of life A fluorescence and phosphorescence gallery featuring a massive panel offluorescent rock from the Sterling Hill Mining Museum in Ogdensburg, New  Jersey, that glows in shades of orange and green under ultraviolet light             The exhibits also will explore the conditions on our planet, throughout time,  that have made possible the extraordinary variety of mineral forms found on Earth.  In addition to the role of plate tectonics and fluids responsible for the formation of  crystals, the exhibits will reveal how the introduction of free oxygen into the Earth’s atmosphere more than 2 billion years ago triggered an explosion not only in biological  life but also in mineral diversity. The oxygenated atmosphere—produced by  cyanobacteria, a group of photosynthetic organisms—made it possible for the few   elements formed after the Big Bang to be transformed into the approximately 4,500  minerals we know today. The Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals are expected to be a striking counterpart to  the David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth and the Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites. The Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, which opened in 1999, illustrates the  evolution and inner workings of our dynamic planet with outstanding geological specimens, while the Ross Hall of Meteorites, which features holdings from the Museum's meteorites collection, depicts the dynamic formation and evolution of our solar system. With exhibitry  that supports New York State and national science education standards, these halls  serve as a vital resource for school and camp groups, educators, and graduate students  in the Museum's Master for Arts in Teaching program, which provides a specialization in  Earth science for teachers of grades 7 through 12. The Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals are expected to open in 2019, as part of the Museum’s 150th anniversary celebration. The Museum gratefully acknowledges Allison and Roberto Mignone for their leadership support of the redesigned Halls of Gems and Minerals. Generous support has been provided by the Arthur Ross Foundation. American Museum of Natural History (amnh.org) The American Museum of Natural History, founded in 1869, is one of the world’s  preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. The Museum encompasses  45 permanent exhibition halls, including those in the Rose Center for Earth and Space  and the Hayden Planetarium, as well as galleries for temporary exhibitions. It is home to  the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial, New York State’s official memorial to its 33rd  governor and the nation’s 26th president, and a tribute to Roosevelt’s enduring legacy  of conservation. The Museum’s five active research divisions and three cross-disciplinary centers support approximately 200 scientists, whose work draws on a world-class  permanent collection of more than 34 million specimens and artifacts, as well as  specialized collections for frozen tissue and genomic and astrophysical data, and  one of the largest natural history libraries in the world. Through its Richard Gilder  Graduate School, it is the only American museum authorized to grant the Ph.D. degree. Beginning in 2015, the Richard Gilder Graduate School also began granting the Master  of Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree, the only such freestanding museum program. Annual visitation has grown to approximately 5 million, and the Museum’s exhibitions and Space Shows are seen by millions more in venues on five continents. The Museum’s website,  mobile apps, and MOOCs (massive open online courses) extend its scientific research  and collections, exhibitions, and educational programs to additional audiences around the globe.  Visit amnh.org for more information. Follow Become a fan of the Museum on Facebook at facebook.com/naturalhistory, follow us on Twitter at @AMNH, on Instagram at @AMNH, and on Tumblr at amnhnyc.

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art To 'Suggest' $25 ticket, Rather Than 'Recommend'

By KAREN MATTHEWS

FILE - In this March 19, 2013 file photo patrons stand in the rain by the front doors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Confusion over the museum’s $25 ticket price will be cleared up under a settlement for a class action suit reached on Friday, Feb. 26, 2016. The $25 “recommended” ticket price will become the $25 “suggested” ticket price under the terms of the settlement. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

NEW YORK (AP) - The pay-what-you-like policy at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art will be spelled out more clearly under a settlement of a class-action lawsuit that challenged the museum's $25 "recommended" admission.

Under the settlement reached Friday, the $25 ticket price will be "suggested" instead of "recommended." In addition, signs will advise visitors that "The amount you pay is up to you."

Andrew Celli Jr., a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Saturday that the new signage "really opens up the museum to people of all economic levels."
Museum officials said they were refining the Met's admissions policies to coincide with next month's opening of a new outpost, the Met Breuer, at the former Madison Avenue home of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

"All of our recent branding and marketing work has been aimed at simplifying our message of welcome to the public and emphasizing that we are accessible to the widest possible audience," Met CEO Thomas P. Campbell said in a statement.
The Met draws more than 6 million visitors a year and recommends an admission fee of $25 for adults, $17 for seniors and $12 for students.

The 2013 lawsuit accused the Met of misleading visitors by implying that they had to pay the full amount. Museum officials denied the allegation.

The lawsuit charged that under the museum's 19th-century lease with the city it had no authority to charge any suggested admission. That portion of the suit was thrown out.
Under the settlement announced Friday, which is subject to court approval, the museum's website as well as signs at admissions desks will use the new language.

Celli, with the firm Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP, said the settlement affects the font size and placement of the words rather than just replacing "recommended" with "suggested."
"Suggested" is now the same size as the word "admission," he said. "I think it really brings the museum back to where it should have been, and where it was historically."

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