One of the most popular and beloved spaces in New York City’s museums will return to public view, completely redesigned and reinstalled, with the opening of the Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History on Saturday, June 12, 2021. A sparkling showcase for the Museum’s world-renowned collection and an engaging guide to current scientific knowledge about our dynamic planet, the 11,000-square-foot Halls are among the first major new cultural facilities to welcome the public as New York reopens.
Reservations to visit the Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals are included in a General Admission ticket and are available now at ticketing.amnh.org.
Telling the fascinating story of how minerals in their vast diversity formed on Earth, and how humans have used them throughout the millennia for personal adornment, tools, and technology, the Halls’ exhibits include:
- a gallery of dazzling gems, including the legendary 563-carat Star of India sapphire, gem crystals like the 632-carat Patricia Emerald, and the Organdie necklace designed by Michelle Ong for Carnet with 110 carats of diamonds,
- fabulous new specimens, many never before exhibited, including a pair of towering, sparkling amethyst geodes that are among the world’s largest on display, a slice of a 35-million-year-old metasequoia (a petrified dawn redwood from the Cascade Mountains), the 9-pound almandine Subway Garnet discovered under Manhattan’s 35th Street in 1885, and the Tarugo, a 3-foot-tall cranberry-red elbaite tourmaline that is one of the most fantastic mineral crystal clusters ever found,
- interactive displays illustrating the science of mineralogy, including a dynamic periodic table of chemical elements that demonstrates how they “make minerals”
- and a temporary exhibition space, the Melissa and Keith Meister Gallery, opening with Beautiful Creatures, an unprecedented display of exquisite historic and contemporary jewelry inspired by animals.
“Visitors have long embraced these Halls as one of the City’s treasures,” said Ellen V. Futter, President of the American Museum of Natural History. “Now, with this complete redesign made possible by Allison and Roberto Mignone, the Halls are more spectacular than ever and an even greater resource for learning about the processes that shape our changing planet and make it so endlessly fascinating. With their opening, we not only mark a signal moment in the resurgence of New York City and the renewal of its cultural life, but also, we hope, accelerate its pace.”
The Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals are named in honor of Allison and Roberto Mignone, longtime Museum supporters and volunteers. Roberto Mignone is a Museum Trustee and Allison Mignone is vice chair of the Museum’s Campaign.
“When you enter the Halls, you truly feel as if you’ve walked into the world’s jewelry box,” said Allison Mignone. “Currently, my favorite spot is standing in front of the 10-ton rock from the Sterling Mine in New Jersey. Although it may look unassuming in daylight, when it is washed in ultraviolet light, the rock’s brilliance comes alive with fluorescence of red and green. It is simply breathtaking and has to be experienced in person. These Halls, and others in the Museum, take science off the page of textbooks and into the real-life experience of countless families and students. Now more than ever, equal access to education is paramount. We look forward to the time when large numbers of students and school groups and their teachers can visit. Halls like these are crucial and tangible tools that communicate the incredible variety of minerals on Earth and how they relate to our lives.”
Organized by Curator George E. Harlow of the Museum’s Division of Physical Sciences, the exhibits in the redesigned Halls are arranged to show the geological conditions and processes by which minerals form: igneous, pegmatitic, metamorphic, hydrothermal, and weathering. As part of this construct, the Halls introduce a concept that has developed over the past 15 years: mineral evolution.
