"Located on the Upper West Side, at 79th Street and Central Park West, the American Museum of Natural History is one of the world's largest museums. It has 45 different halls, occupies more than 2 million square feet, and has some 33 million different specimens—only a fraction are on display at any time. It includes an abundance of dioramas and reconstructed skeletons, and "cultural halls" that extend natural history into anthropology. The museum makes a valiant effort to constantly keep its exhibits relevant by adopting new interactive technologies and displays as it battles the preconceptions of many that natural-history museums are old-fashioned institutions. In 2000, it also added the Rose Center for Earth and Space, which has proven popular with young aspiring astronauts and astronomers. If you are headed to New York with kids and they haven't already watched Night at the Museum , you may want to rent it before your trip (even if most of the interior scenes were actually shot on a set in Vancouver )."
