New York Aquarium

July 30, 2018

This August, party on the rooftop of the New York Aquarium

Sure, there are plenty of rooftops to get your drink on this summer, but here's a chance to do it with fireworks and fish. As part of the inaugural season of their new Ocean Wonders: Sharks! exhibit, Coney Island's New York Aquarium is hosting late-night Friday and Saturday night rooftop parties during August and Labor Day weekend. The aquarium usually closes at 7pm, but for Summer Nights they'll welcome guests until 10pm with cocktails and a fireworks display on the roof of their new building, as well as extended access to the nine new spaces, including a 40-foot-long immersive coral reef tunnel, a rare look into the underwater "Grand Canyon," and a real hull from a local shipwreck.
All the details
December 28, 2016

A mile-deep, 10,000-year-old version of the Grand Canyon sits just below the Hudson

In the natural wonders department, the East Coast has its very own version of the Grand Canyon. Sitting under about 60 feet of water at the mouth of the Hudson River, the Hudson Canyon was created during the last ice age 10,000 years ago. Located on the continental margin (the zone of the ocean floor that separates the thin oceanic crust from thick continental crust) off New York and New Jersey at the outlet of the Hudson River, it's so deep (estimated to be at least a mile) that we don't know much about what lies at the bottom, but we do know that it's a biodiversity hotspot. Jon Forrest Dohlin, vice president of the Wildlife Conservation Society and director of the New York Aquarium tells NYMetro that due to the unique phenomenon of an upwelling of cold water mixing with warmer surface currents, the submarine canyon is able to provide a home for hundreds of species from plankton to turtles, sharks, whales and birds.
Find out what it's like inside the canyon
September 5, 2014

New Yorker Spotlight: Sue Chin on Designing for a Very Different Type of Client at the Wildlife Conservation Society

Susan (Sue) A. Chin, FAIA is an architect and designer with a very different type of clientele. Currently, her roster includes tigers, gorillas, and sharks, all of whom have very specific design needs. As the Vice President of Planning & Design and Chief Architect at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Sue oversees the architectural and design needs of the Society's zoos and parks (Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium, Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo, and Queens Zoo), as well as their conservation work around the globe. The organization currently has about 500 projects in 65 countries, which means her work is showcased as far away as Madagascar. 6sqft recently spoke with Sue about WCS, how she got into the field as a teenager, her clients (both human and non), and the exciting new exhibit under construction at the New York Aquarium in Coney Island.
Read our full interview with Sue here