Buildings 3, 5, 9 & 10 (Zoological and Ecosystems Diorama Section) (New York City, New York)

USA / New Jersey / West New York / New York City, New York

This section comprises four additions to the complex, Buildings 3, 5, 9, and 10, all built in the Romanesque-revival style and clad in granite (brick in the case of the 1-story Building 10). Designed by Cady, Berg & See, Building 3 (the east wing of the south facade) was completed in 1895, followed by Building 5 (the southeast corner pavilion) in 1899. Building 9 extended to the north of the southeast pavilion along Central Park West, completed in 1916 and designed by Trowbridge & Livingston. Behind it, Building 10 was built at the same time by the same architects.

Stretching east from the South Entrance, which was completed as few years earlier, Buildings 3 & 5 filled out the south facade of the museum over to Central Park West, blended harmoniously with the older section. The pink granite is rusticated to match, and the top floor is a steep-sloped mansard of red slate. Building 3 is divided into three sections by a pair of projecting columns that rises to torch-shaped capitals in front of the mansard roof. The center of these three sections has three bays of double-windows, with round-arched fanlights across them at the 2nd floor. The outer sections both have two bays of single-windows on the top three floors, and double-windows on the lower floors (round-arched at the 2nd floor). Square dormers at the 5th floor break the mansard.

Building 5 projects out slightly farther than Building 3, linked by a short, angled section of wall with one window per floor, and rises six floors instead of five. The main south-facing section has three bays of windows - single-windows flanking the center bay of thinner double-windows; the windows are all square-headed. The granite cladding extends up to the 5th floor, with the sloped slate roof taking its place at the 6th level, where the center bay continues the granite cladding to surround a round-arched double-window; the granite extends up to a gable with a finial rising above the copper cresting of the tile roof behind it. At the corner is a projecting, rounded turret reminiscent of those flanking the main south entrance, but somewhat larger. Only the ground floor is rough-faced at the turret. Bays of double-windows wrap around the 6-story turret, with a projecting stone balcony also wrapping around the 5th floor; it is carried on squat brackets and has a balustrade with round cutouts. A modillioned cornice tops the turret where it is crowned by a large 6-sided cone with an eagle and wreath at each facet, and a copper ball on top. Extending north from the corner turret, the east facade has a bay of narrow double-windows flanked by single-windows. Rounded columns divide the double-windows at the lower floors. The 5th floor is set off by a modillioned cornice and topped by a copper band course, above which rises a peaked gable with a round-arched window. The red-slate roof continues on either side of and behind the gable. An angled bay at the north links Building 5 to Building 9, which continues the east facade north along Central Park West.

Building 9 rises five floors, and is clad in a greyer shade of granite, rough-faced at the ground floor where the openings have been filled. The eight bays have large, square window openings at the 2nd-3rd floors, with taller windows at the 4th floor, and (above the modillioned cornice) small paired windows at the 5th floor.

These buildings contain the Hall of Biodiversity, Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, Warburg Hall of New York State Environment, North American Forests, Asian Mammals, Stout Hall of Asian Peoples, Reptiles & Amphibians, Milstein Hall of Advanced Mammals, Primitive Mammals, Wallace Wing of Mammals, and Ornithischian Dinosaurs.
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Coordinates:   40°46'49"N   73°58'25"W
This article was last modified 5 years ago