Museum Of Natural History

 We visited the Museum of Natural History on a cold and rainy day. We walked through a pretty flower garden on the way in and everything had just started blooming. Acadia and I noticed a statue of a man in the garden that neither of us had ever noticed before on prior visits. We talked about how this project has allowed us to notice so many small details in New York City that we had not seen before even though both if us have lived here for a very long time. After reserving a time to come in, they had us pay what we wanted to for admission because we are NYC residents. They took our temperature at the door. The lobby was basically empty except for two staff members. As we walked toward more popular exhibits like the giant whale and room with all the mammals the 'crowds' were a bit larger. I put crowds in air quotes because compared to the normal crowds at the museum, they were much smaller. One exhibit that was fully closed because of covid is the butterfly exhibit. They also did not allow anyone to touch the screens in the bug exhibit. When we left the museum, there was a security guard standing at the exit and we thought it could be helpful to interview him. We asked him what differences he sees in the museum before the pandemic compared to after and he explained how the biggest difference is the occupancy because there are much less people walking around the museum and he does not think that this is just because you need a reservation- but because there are less tourists coming to visit the museum and less tours being led by staff members. He was very helpful and explanatory.