Morris Ketchum Jesup, was an American banker and philanthropist. He was the president of the American Museum of Natural History and was known as a leading patron of scientific research and an eminent art collector, particularly towards his support for Frederic Edwin Church.
Morris Ketchum Jesup
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 20 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibition halls, in addition to a planetarium and a library. The museum collections contain about 32 million specimens of plants, animals, fungi, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts, as well as specialized collections for frozen tissue and genomic and astrophysical data, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time. The museum occupies more than 2,500,000 sq ft (232,258 m2). AMNH has a full-time scientific staff of 225, sponsors over 120 special field expeditions each year, and averages about five million visits annually.
Facade of the east entrance from Central Park West
Drawing of the AMNH south facade, publication 1916
This wing was built from 1874 to 1877.
The old Romanesque Revival-style 77th Street entrance