20 Report of the President 



BUILDING PLANS 



In presenting to the Trustees, on May 8, 191 1, the plans 

 of the Southeast Wing and Court Building, the architects were 

 invited by the Committee on Building and Plans* to prepare a 

 preliminary study of the East Facade on Central Park, a 

 reproduction of which is shown as a frontispiece of this report. 

 This sketch, which will be followed in time by a more serious 

 architectural study, retains the main lines of the South Facade, 

 but is a marked step in the direction of greater simplicity of 

 design. It is proposed that the central entrance on the Park 

 shall be approached by a new driveway and that the section 

 shall contain an architecturally imposing interior on the second 

 floor appropriate for a building of such vast proportions as the 

 American Museum is destined to be. This entrance will be 

 essentially the Zoological Entrance of the Museum, empha- 

 sized by the African and Asiatic Halls which will open out 

 from it; whereas, the entrance on the west side, at the foot of 

 Seventy-ninth Street, will be the Anthropological Entrance, as 

 indicated by the monumental architecture of Mexico and Cen- 

 tral America, which will be rearranged in the Entrance Hall. 

 Interior plans for the transepts connecting these eastern and 

 western entrances are now being very carefully studied. 



In response to the recommendation of the Trustees of 

 May 8, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment appropriated 

 on July 17 the sum of $200,000 for the excavation and foun- 

 dation of the new Southeast Wing and Court Building, and it 

 is understood that this will be followed by an appropriation of 

 $550,000 for the erection of these buildings. At the same 

 time an appropriation of $75,000 was made for the equipment 

 of the existing building. 



FUTURE EXHIBITION HALLS 



The future building, approved by the Trustees on May 8, 



provides for a large number of exhibition halls for branches 



of natural history new to the Museum. Among these the 



Museum is now actively engaged in preparing for the following: 



GEOGRAPHIC HALL, East Wing, First Floor 

 AFRICAN HALL, East Wing, Second Floor 

 OCEANOGRAPHIC HALL, Southeast Wing, First Floor 

 WHALE COURT, Southeast Court, First Floor 

 ICHTHYOLOGY HALL, Southeast Wing, Second Floor 



*Messrs. Pyne, Warburg, Grant and the President ex-ojfficio. 



