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236:). It decided not to move forward with the project in meetings in both May and December 1870, citing economic and cost concerns. Hawkins spoke out publicly against Tweed and the cancellation in a public meeting in March 1871. The prospects of reviving the museum were crushed after an act of vandalism. On May 3, 1871, vandals armed with sledgehammers arrived at the workshop in Central Park and destroyed it, smashing the seven finished models and their molds, and destroying the plans and drawings they could find. The ruined sculptures were then buried somewhere near the southwestern corner of the park.
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258:—and further has a record of strange and destructive acts, including disputing with museum officials and ordering artifacts destroyed or painted over. Hilton had already ordered Hawkins to stop work earlier, and had a history of other "crazy actions"; the article wrote that Hilton was "not only bad, but also mad." Additionally, while Hawkins had criticized Tweed, it was one minor instance buried on the fifth page of
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254:. However, contemporary sources do not all agree it was Tweed; a 2023 paper reassessed the evidence, and considered it unlikely Tweed had ordered the vandalism. Rather, the paper suggests that Henry Hilton, an eccentric lawyer and a commissioner on the new Public Parks board that had been appointed in 1870, was a more likely culprit. Hilton was involved in supporting a rival project—the 1869
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Unfortunately for
Hawkins, the planned museum ran afoul of 19th century New York's politics. A new governing board of Central Park appointed in April 1870 still included Andrew Green, who had been supportive of the project, but reduced him to a mere member. The new board was led by
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was in its infancy then, but interest was high for a museum displaying the latest findings. The museum never came to fruition after a combination of political resistance and a bizarre case of vandalism in 1871 that destroyed the
250:"machine" was the party of Irish immigrants, Hawkins was English, and Irish-English relations were famously tense in the era. Religious motives were another speculated factor—perhaps Tweed or the vandals were motivated by
264:; Tweed was a person constantly criticized by the media of the day, often far more prominently and on the front page. The article argues he could not possibly have taken revenge on every such petty slight.
116:'s Crystal Palace, Hawkins' display was to be housed within a great iron frame and an arched glass roof. Surviving sketches and photographs show that Hawkins had planned an elaborate, if
100:. He accepted the commission in May 1868. The museum was to have been known as the Paleozoic Museum (or Palaeozoic Museum); despite the name, it was intended to be a museum of all
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at Hyde Palace was taken down and moved to a new location in South London. The
Crystal Palace reopened in 1854, and one of the new exhibits was sculptor
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environments; these works have survived. Hawkins models from the
Crystal Palace exhibition are still extant and can still be seen today in
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Extant drawings by
Hawkins, along with other records, indicate that the Paleozoic Museum would have included life-sized restorations of the
84:. The Dinosaur exhibit was a great success and very popular. Hawkins came to America in 1868 and displayed a mounted dinosaur skeleton in
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355:"The curious case of Central Park's dinosaurs: The destruction of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins' Paleozoic Museum revisited"
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51:, and the foundations for an eventual structure were laid at Central Park West and 63rd Street. The field of
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Various sources blamed Tweed for having sent the vandals, often linking it to ethnic bigotry—Tweed's
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319:; Beneker, Katharine (1959). "The Palaeozoic Museum in Central Park, or the Museum that Never Was".
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43:. Planning and initial construction for the museum proceeded in 1868–1870; English sculptor
207:, and extinct mammalian carnivores. After the plans for the museum fell through, Hawkins went to
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96:, recruited Hawkins to create replicas of these ancient giants for a proposed museum in
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92:'s newly created Board of Commissioners of Central Park (BCCP), headed by Comptroller
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Scenes from Deep Time: Early
Pictorial Representations of the Prehistoric World
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384:"New suspect emerges in long-ago vandalism of dinosaur sculptures"
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288:. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. pp. 140–148.
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where he painted a number of restorations of
America's Late
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models that were prepared to be displayed in the museum.
108:. Foundations for the structure were laid by architect
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Hawkin's conceptual drawing of the
Paleozoic Museum.
473:Unbuilt buildings and structures in New York City
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16:Proposed museum of natural history in Manhattan
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353:Coules, Victoria; Benton, Michael J. (2023).
468:Failed museum proposals in the United States
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241:Location of proposed museum in Central Park
112:at Central Park West and 63rd Street. Like
80:' life-sized concrete dinosaur models, the
359:Proceedings of the Geologists' Association
149:Hawkin's studio in Central Park, ca. 1870.
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47:planned and began creation of the
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463:Defunct museums in New York City
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382:Blakemore, Erin (May 20, 2023).
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368:10.1016/j.pgeola.2023.04.004
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321:Curator: The Museum Journal
78:Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins
45:Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins
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31:was a proposed museum of
104:history, not merely the
82:Crystal Palace Dinosaurs
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439:40.77056°N 73.97944°W
282:Rudwick, Martin J. S.
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110:Frederick Law Olmsted
88:. Inspired, in 1868
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234:William Magear Tweed
209:Princeton University
120:, menagerie, mixing
444:40.77056; -73.97944
435: /
388:The Washington Post
197:giant ground sloths
166:), the hadrosaurid
72:of 1851 in London,
261:The New York Times
195:models, a pair of
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74:The Crystal Palace
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317:Colbert, Edwin H.
172:, the plesiosaur
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106:Paleozoic period
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29:Paleozoic Museum
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391:. Retrieved
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248:Tammany Hall
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175:Elasmosaurus
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163:Dryptosaurus
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102:antediluvian
98:Central Park
86:Philadelphia
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53:paleontology
41:Central Park
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26:
442: /
327:: 137–150.
252:creationism
223:Destruction
201:Pleistocene
169:Hadrosaurus
126:plesiosaurs
124:dinosaurs,
457:Categories
430:73°58′46″W
427:40°46′14″N
268:References
213:Cretaceous
193:glyptodont
189:New Jersey
184:Mosasaurus
178:, and the
68:After the
64:The museum
130:mosasaurs
114:Hyde Park
90:Manhattan
37:Manhattan
284:(1992).
217:Sydenham
205:mammoths
199:, giant
180:mosasaur
155:theropod
137:Cenozoic
122:Mesozoic
58:dinosaur
49:dioramas
393:May 22,
158:Laelaps
140:mammals
134:extinct
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219:Park.
128:, and
203:elk,
132:with
39:near
395:2023
290:ISBN
27:The
363:doi
329:doi
35:in
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160:(=
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
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