History
The New York Aquarium opened on December 10, 1896, at Castle Garden in Battery Park. Its first director was the respected fish expert, Dr. Tarleton Hoffman Bean (1895–1898). On October 31, 1902, the Aquarium was adopted into the care of what was then the New York Zoological Society. At the time, the Aquarium housed only 150 specimens of wildlife. Over time, its most famous director, the distinguished zoologist Charles Haskins Townsend, enlarged the collections considerably, and the Aquarium attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
Early in October 1941, the Aquarium at Battery Park was controversially closed based on claims of NYC Parks Commissioner Robert Moses that the proposed construction of a tunnel from Lower Manhattan to Brooklyn might undermine Castle Clinton's foundation. Many of the Aquarium’s sea creatures were temporarily housed at the Bronx Zoo until the new aquarium was built after World War II. On June 6, 1957, the Aquarium opened its doors at its new location in Coney Island, Brooklyn.
An extensive addition, Ocean Wonders: Sharks! is scheduled to open in the spring of 2015.
Read more about this topic: New York Aquarium
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—William James (1842–1910)
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“Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)