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New York Aquarium News
A Golden Anniversary in America’s First Playground
The New York Aquarium celebrates its golden anniversary at Coney Island this year, but its history extends much further back. It’s the oldest continually operating aquarium in the country. The aquarium opened its doors on December 10, 1896 in Battery Park, Manhattan. In those early days, the New York Aquarium was the biggest in the world, drawing more than two million visitors in its first year—making it the city’s best-attended institution.
In the 1940s, proposed construction of a bridge from lower Manhattan to Brooklyn resulted in the Aquarium’s closure. The Bronx Zoo gave the tentacled and flippered vagabonds temporary shelter. After World War II, the Wildlife Conservation Society built a new aquarium in Coney Island. Opening day was June 6, 1957.
Since then, the Aquarium has become part of the fabric of Brooklyn’s legendary Coney Island. Musical Aquatheater sea lion demonstrations combine cool facts about the animals with the spirit of “America’s First Playground.” Exhibits such as Alien Stingers feature marine life as colorful and bizarre as the sword swallowers and mermaids of the Coney Island Circus Sideshow. The Deep Sea 3-D ride beckons pedestrians strolling the boardwalk, and the state-of-the art Seaside Café offers tasty beach fare to hungry visitors.
Today the Aquarium houses more than 10,000 marine specimens, including the only male raft of California sea otters on the East Coast, three walruses, and rare African cichlids, some extinct in the wild. Our 350-pound, 42-year-old sand tiger shark Bertha is the oldest of her kind in any aquarium. Through innovative public events such as the Wyland Clean Water National Tour and classes of our Summer by the Sea program, we inspire visitors to join us in preserving our waterways. The future for Bertha and her wild kin, after all, rests with us.
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