Childhood Wonder Renewal

It took "Ice Cold: An Exhibition of Hip-Hop Jewelry" to get me back to the American Museum of Natural History.  I last visited shortly after the Rose Center for Earth and Space opened at the turn of the millennium.

Drake's "The Crown Jewel of Toronto Pendant" by Alex Moss (2023)

I entered the Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation on Columbus Avenue.  It opened last year to much acclaim.  Modern architecture grafted on to a building that opened in 1869 doesn't sound like a great idea, but it works, evoking a sense of wonder as soon as you step inside.

A small darkened gallery houses the bling.  Each piece is identified by who owns it, who made it and when.  T-Pain designed this ten-pound necklace in response to an anonymous challenge.

The pieces can get pretty elaborate.  Tyler, the Creator can open his bellhop's suitcases.

Necklace by Alex Moss (2021)

A$AP Rocky's EXO Grenade Pendant by Alex Moss (2023)

Joey BadaS$'s Capital Steez Necklace by Greg Yuna (ca. 2016)

If you're as fond of color as I am, look no farther than the adjacent Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals. My father returned from Australia with a gift of opals for Lois, his wife.  I don't recall them looking like this.

Decades earlier, Ken also brought back a green ring from Japan that I passed along to Zoltan.  When he had it appraised, we discovered the stone was jadeite, not jade, which also comes in a variety of colors.  Zoltan's ring most resembles the green on the far left.

My "Abstraction" photo file expanded considerably as a result of my visit to the hall, and reminded me that as a child I used to collect unusual stones which Ken would help me mount and label on framed white poster board which hung above my slot car track in the garage.  A fossil from the Loire Valley and a chunk of the Petrified Forest were two of my most prized possessions.

Dawn Redwood (Cascade Mountains, Washington)

Orbicular Granodiorite (Western Australia)

"The Singing Stone" (Azurite & Malachite, Arizona)

Rhodonite (New Jersey)

Calcite and Aragonite (Arizona)

Elbaite (Brazil)

You can glimpse the Solomon Family Insectarium from outside the museum.

If you like creepy crawlies, it's incredible.

Ever wonder what goes on inside a beehive?  Wonder no more!  There's an ant farm, too.

Insects of all varieties are beautifully displayed, like these that belong to the Phasmatodea order.

Who knew mosquitoes and cockroaches could grow so big?

Lifesize Mosquito (Culex pipiens)

Giant Cave Cockroach

When my parents returned from Munich in 1957, we stopped to visit relatives in White Plains.  Ken awakened me before dawn one day and we drove down to the Fulton Fish Market, then located in lower Manhattan.  Our adventure continued at the American Museum of Natural History.  It's one of my earliest childhood memories.  But the funny thing is I don't recall the dinosaurs, just the squid.  

Tyrannosaurus rex

Protoceratops 

Stegosaurus 

Constantin Astori painted this pterosaur mural in 1942 for the Hall of Late Dinosaurs.

This flamingo mural is even older.  Louis Agassiz Fuertes, painted the birds in 1902.

Fuertes worked with Frank Chapman, the museum's first ornithologist, to create the stunning dioramas in the Sanford Hall of North American Birds.  They're the oldest in the museum and predate the birth of my mother and father by more than a decade well over a century ago.  In addition to funding the hall, Leonard C. Sanford donated many of the specimens from his own collection.  

Wood Storks

I paid special attention to the birds I've personally photographed in the wild.

Sandhill Cranes (Winding Waters Natural Area, FL)

Desert Birds

Roadrunner (Yucca Valley, CA)

This random display reminded me that the first charitable donation I ever made was to the Bat Conservation International in Austin, Texas, when I learned the critters with bad reps pollinated banana trees and feasted on mosquitoes.

The Gilder Center looks pretty cool from the outside, too.