Movins; drawers of fossil invertchrales nilo (he east iving, 1962. 



basement was too low to admit a large truck, and twenty 

 years later, when the fossils were being moved to the 

 new Silver Hill facility, this architectural oversight led 

 to strong words. 



The Arrival of Air Conditioning 



Air conditioning came in with the new wing. Old-timers 

 hailed it as a momentous break with the past, and Frank 

 Taylor, then director of the United States National Mu- 

 seum, produced a nice homily on the occasion: "Visiting 

 the Museum is now much more pleasant for the hundreds 

 of thousands of summer visitors, who as a result, are 

 induced to stay longer and absorb more of the instruc- 

 tion and inspiration that exhibits provide."" 



But air conditioning was a new concept for the Mu- 

 seum, and the engineers could not get it to work prop- 

 erly. When members of the staff managed to contrive 

 keys to open the pivoting windows, the captain of the 

 guards announced under orders that when rounds were 

 made, "every danm window in the wing has got to be 

 closed." An anonymous voice from the rear mentioned 

 that Dr. Kellogg liked his window open, and the order 

 was modified to, "Well, every other damn window in the 

 wing' has got to be closed." Despite perennial problems, 

 the climate control eventually got somewhat better, but 

 the north side of the building is always too cold and 

 the south side is always too warm. 



During the early days in the east wing, the cleaning 

 force could not cope with the extra work. One day a 

 memorandum from "Buildings Maintenance" ap- 

 peared under every door, indicating how difficult it 

 was for the cleaning staff to keep ahead of the slovenly 

 scientists. It further noted that henceforth all scientists 

 were expected to clean their own offices and that brooms 

 would be placed on each floor. The scientists were in- 

 censed, and when the building superintendent found 

 out about it he was incensed, and sent someone around 

 to collect all copies of the spurious memo. Porter Kier 

 still has the original copy he wrote. 



Entomologists Move Out 



There were many more scientists along the west side 

 of the building than along the east side. The largest 

 group was the entomologists in Hall 27 on the second 

 floor. In 1962, when space was needed for construction 

 of the west wing and renovation of the main building, 

 they volunteered to move to the Bergman Laundry 

 building in northwest Washington for what was sup- 

 posed to be a couple of years, but turned out to be 

 nearly a decade. 



The contract for the new construction was signed in 

 August 1963, and the digging began in November. Once 

 again the work went quickly, and by the end of June 



New Wings and a New Elephant 



107 



