A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
From the Photo series: A Closer Look: Explore Western New York’s architectural treasures series
The Buffalo Museum of Science collection contains more than 700,000 specimens ranging across a broad range of sciences. Exhibits range from natural sciences and biodiversity to space exploration and everything in between, housed in a modern classical building that opened in 1929.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
The Buffalo Museum of Science is just outside the downtown area in Martin Luther King Park on what was once Humboldt Parkway before it was replaced by the Kensington Expressway.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
The seal of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, featuring a eurypterid, New York's official state fossil, is part of the frieze on the grand northern face of the Buffalo Museum of Science.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
The building was designed by August Esenwein and James A. Johnson and opened in 1929. Columns line the former entrance on the north side where the main entrance was located before the 1990 addition.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
The newly restored Kellogg Observatory atop the Buffalo Museum of Science features a new aluminized steel dome that rotates at the push of a button using built-in motors. The original patina copper dome was found to be too thin and weathered to be reused.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
Lamp posts on the northern plaza. The first meeting of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences took place in 1861, and Judge George W. Clinton, son of four-term New York Gov. Dewitt Clinton, was elected its first president.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A Greek figure adorns the northern face of the museum.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
Detail of the tops of columns on the grand northern face.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
Mythological beasts adorn the frieze on the northern face. The museum was designed as a "modern" adaptation of classical Greek architecture.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
The Buffalo Museum of Science was designed as a "modern" adaptation to classical architecture.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A Greek figure adorns the northern side.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
Ellicott crosses cover the transoms over the old entrance.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
The seal of the City of Buffalo on the cornerstone.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
Detail of characters on the cauldron-style lamps on the northern entrance.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
The new main entrance to the Buffalo Museum of Science in a building it shares with the Dr. Charles R. Drew Science Magnet Elementary School. The multistory addition opened in 1990.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
Years along the windows on the western side of the Buffalo Museum of Science represent the class years of students in museum courses that were once offered.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
Stanley the Albertosaurus greets visitors at the main entrance. The museum held a contest to name the dinosaur, a relative of the Tyrannosaurus, which was unveiled at the museum in 2011.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
Stuffy the American Bison has been a part of the museum since 1895, when it was called the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences. Stuffy is actually not stuffed. The bison skin was fit over papier-mache and wire mesh. Stuffy stood in the Central Terminal for several years.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
The "exploded human skeleton" from the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago, on display at the Buffalo Museum of Science.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
The old southern facade of the Buffalo Museum of Science is now indoors, connected to a 1990 addition to the museum that is shared with the Dr. Charles R. Drew Science Magnet Elementary School.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
Seymour the Mastodon is the centerpiece of the main floor. The skeleton and several other mastodon specimens were recovered during a museum-led dig at an Ice Age site in Byron.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
American bison appear to roam inside one of the original dioramas that remain as part of the biodiversity exhibit. The two cows and a calf came to the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences from the Buffalo Zoo in the 1890s.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A pair of polar bears in frighteningly real poses in the biodiversity exhibit. The museum has worked since 2010 to transform its former diorama-based exhibits into interactive and immersive science studio exhibit spaces.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
Animal specimens on display in the biodiversity exhibit.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A specimen of the extinct dodo bird is on display in the Rethink Extinct exhibit. The Dodo was found by Dutch soldiers around 1600 on an island in the Indian Ocean and became extinct less than 80 years later.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A dinosaur skeleton casts a frightening shadow at the entrance to the Rethink Extinct exhibit. The exhibit also features the rare fully intact Elephant Bird Egg and the museumu2019s Bermuda Coral Reef diorama.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
The Chenrezig Mandala, which was made at the Buffalo Museum of Science in 1991 with sand by monks from Namgyal Monastery in Dharamsala, India, is currently on display in the Artifacts exhibit.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A colorful neon light display illustrates the processes of the human heart in the Explore You exhibit.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A humorous display comparing the human body to a factory inside the Explore You exhibit.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
Detail of a depiction of the anatomy of a human head in the Explore You exhibit.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A digital globe illustrates a number of unique weather phenomena, including real-time tracking of hurricanes, in the Our Marvelous Earth exhibit.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A German cube dial from 1730 in a display of ancient tools for measuring the world in the Our Marvelous Earth exhibit.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A display uses geometric shapes and mirrors to create snowflake patterns in the Our Marvelous Earth exhibit.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A variety of moths and other insects on display in the Bug Works exhibit.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
Seymour the Mastodon is the centerpiece of the main floor. The skeleton and several other mastodon specimens were recovered during a museum-led dig at an Ice Age site in Byron. The mastodon was unveiled at the museum in 2011.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
The atrium of the Buffalo Museum of Science, where the original 1929 building, left, meets the 1990 addition.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
The seal of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences at the former main entrance.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
At the Buffalo In Space exhibit, a Buffalo skyline display imagines what the night sky would look like if the planet Neptune, pictured, or a variety of other celestial bodies occupied the place of the moon.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
Various samples of pottery in the anthropology storage area behind the scenes at the Buffalo Museum of Science.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A stuffed Siberian tiger is stored between cabinets in the vertebrate zoology department behind the scenes at the Buffalo Museum of Science.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A scull of a Hyracodon nebraskensis, an extinct pony-like mammal, is kept in the geology storage area.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
In the Buffalo Museum of Science's botanical collection, cabinet upon cabinet are filled with folders containing samples of thousands of types of plant and seed samples.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
Intern Alyson Katz moves a tray containing study skins of various rodent species prepared in the vertebrate zoology lab.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
Skeletons of various types of birds are on display in a cabinet in the vertebrate zoology storage area.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A drawer containing various fossil samples in the geology storage area.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A crane fly in amber is among fossil samples in a drawer in the geology storage area.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A crab is among fossil samples in a drawer in the geology storage area behind the scenes at the Science Museum.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
Mastodon tusks recovered from a museum-led dig at an Ice Age site in Byron u2013 too large to be stored inside a cabinet u2013 are wrapped in plaster casts in the geology storage area.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A collection of polished mineral spheres in a drawer inside the geology storage area.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A variety of mineral art objects in the geology storage area behind the scenes at Science Museum.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A variety of geodes in the geology storage area.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A eurypterid fossil is among specimens from the Paleozoic era in the geology storage area. The extinct marine arthropod is related to the horseshoe crab. The eurypterid is also pictured on the seal of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences.
A Closer Look: Buffalo Museum of Science
A sample of a desert rose, crystal clusters of the mineral barite engulfed in sand grains collected in Oklahoma, on display in the geology storage area.
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Photo series: A Closer Look: Explore Western New York’s architectural treasures
This series has taken Buffalo News photographers inside, outside, above and, on occasion, underneath local landmarks and to places most people…
