American Museum of Natural History: An Audio Guide with Context

(4 reviews)

New York City audio tour: American Museum of Natural History: An Audio Guide with Context

This is an indoor tour

New York City

The United States

$19.99

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About the Tour

The American Museum of Natural History is one of the oldest and largest natural history museums in the world. On this audio tour with historian and Context Travel expert David Gassett, you’ll discover this truly universal museum, and see several highlights in its collection of over 30 million items.

David will take you on a journey that covers the full range of life in our universe, from the forested hills of the museum’s African animal dioramas, to the far reaches of space in its custom-built-to-scale planetarium, the Rose Center for Earth and Space, where our tour ends.

Starting at the museum’s monumental entrance on Central Park West, you’ll hear about the history of one of New York’s great civic institutions, and its place in the city today. You’ll visit some of the museum’s oldest, newest, and most famous sites, including a 1,400-year-old sequoia tree in the Hall of North American Forests and the Richard Gilder Center, which you enter through a new cave-like entrance atrium. Along the way, David will direct you to key exhibits in each gallery as you learn to decipher their fascinating stories.

On this 75-minute journey, you’ll have a chance to:

Walk beneath a life-size blue whale model to learn about changes in Ocean Science
Discover why a giant stone used to “sing” in museum storage and how museums care for their objects today
Meet Lucy, one of our oldest human ancestors, who revolutionized our understanding of human evolution
Learn how to classify dinosaur fossils like a paleontologist, and take in the skull of an actual Tyrannosaurus Rex
Get to know the complicated legacy of President Teddy Roosevelt, whose memorial lies in the museum
Hear how the museum and advisors from the Indigenous communities of the Pacific Northwest reimagined its historic Northwest Coast Hall

By the end of this audio tour, you’ll have insights into the American Museum of Natural History’s collection of different sciences, and a better understanding of its ongoing story of natural history.

Please Note: This tour doesn't include entry into the museum. Buy your entry tickets online here.

Tour Producer

Context Travel

92 tours

Context was founded in Rome in 2003 by Paul Bennett and Lani Bevacqua an expat couple eager to curate experiences for travelers, not tourists. Since then Context has taken over 200,000 people to 60+ destinations around the world – accompanied by thousands of leading experts. What started as a dream to create cross-cultural connections is now a worldwide network and community of thoughtful, engaged travelers and experts.

Join a live private or small group tour in destinations around the world at contexttravel.com.

Preview Location

Location 11

Singing Stone: Hall of Gems and Minerals

Another major way that scientists examine the past is through Geology and Mineralogy, which study objects that exist far beyond a human lifespan, rocks and minerals. The giant rock you see before is actually a special rock-mineral combination, known as an amethyst geode.

T... Another major way that scientists examine the past is through Geology and Mineralogy, which study objects that exist far beyond a human lifespan, rocks and minerals. The giant rock you see before is actually a special rock-mineral combination, known as an amethyst geode.

This geode and the one behind it formed when magma cooled around a gas bubble, allowing rock to form on the outside but water to seep in and deposit minerals that turn into crystals on the inside. These specific geodes weigh 11,000 and 9,000 pounds, respectively.

Although scientists do carefully research specimens like these geodes, sometimes those studies aren't the controlled experiments you're thinking of. Sometimes they're chance discoveries.

To see one of these, walk now past the geodes, into the center of the Hall of Gems and Minerals, where you'll find a large rectangular stone with blue-green lines running through it, called the Singing Stone.

[5-second pause]

This beautiful specimen is a combination of two relatively common elements, limestone rock and copper ore, specifically azurite and malachite (the blue and the green). When it arrived in 1894 at the museum’s Hall of Gems and Minerals, however, a strange thing started to occur.

At that time, the museum kept its collection of minerals in a random hallway on the fourth floor. The windowed hallway was unsecured and open to the elements. Thus, every spring and fall, the limestone block would start to "sing," emitting low moans and high-pitched squeaky noises. Museum scientists quickly realized that the different minerals in the stone were reacting differently to the large humidity changes we get here in NYC. The limestone, in particular, would absorb and release water, expanding and contracting, rubbing against the more stable copper ore. It was this phenomenon (along with a few others) that convinced the museum that even rocks and minerals need climate-controlled spaces, leading the museum to move the collection down to the space you see it in today where fortunately for the stone, and unfortunately for us, it has stopped "singing."

When you're done admiring the “Singing Stone,” please continue towards the back of the hall. We're leaving through the far end of the exhibit. When you get there, exit into a white hall and turn right into the new, sun-filled, Exploration Atrium.

If you need the restrooms, they're located here just around the corner to the right.

In either case, our next destination is the right-side wall just past the restrooms. Once you reach this transparent wall full of objects, you can play the next track. Read More

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Major Landmarks

American Museum of Natural History

Getting There

Route Overview

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Start location
200 Central Prk W, New York, NY 10024, USA
Total distance

0m
Final location
200 Central Prk W, New York, NY 10024, USA
Distance back to start location

0m

Directions to Starting Point

The tour begins in front of the entrance to the American Museum of Natural History, located at 79th Street and Central Park West.

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Tips

Places to stop along the way

There are cafes, a food court and a restaurant if you need refreshments.

Best time of day

The museum is open daily from 10 AM till 5:30 PM. There is no limit on the time you can spend in the museum once you enter, and this tour is fully accessible with a General Admission ticket.

Precautions

Keep in mind that since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the museum now requires visitors to reserve tickets online for a specific entrance time slot. Although you can sometimes do this as you arrive at the museum, same-day tickets are not always available, especially during busy times, so it is best to purchase your tickets one or more days before your visit. Admission tickets can be purchased here

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Questions and Reviews

4.8 / 5

4 Ratings

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