1.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
2.
Natural history
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Natural history is the research and study of organisms including animals, fungi and plants in their environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. It encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it, with articles nowadays more often published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the sciences, natural history is the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms. That is a broad designation in a world filled with many narrowly focused disciplines. For example, geobiology has a strong multi-disciplinary nature combining scientists, a person who studies natural history is known as a naturalist or natural historian. The English term natural history is a translation of the Latin historia naturalis and its meaning has narrowed progressively with time, while the meaning of the related term nature has widened. In antiquity, it covered essentially anything connected with nature or which used materials drawn from nature. For example, Pliny the Elders encyclopedia of this title, published circa 77 to 79 AD, covers astronomy, geography, man and his technology, medicine and superstition as well as animals and plants. Medieval European academics considered knowledge to have two divisions, the humanities and divinity, with science studied largely through texts rather than observation or experiment. In modern terms, natural philosophy roughly corresponded to modern physics and chemistry, natural history had been encouraged by practical motives, such as Linnaeus aspiration to improve the economic condition of Sweden. Similarly, the Industrial Revolution prompted the development of geology to help find useful mineral deposits, the astronomer, William Herschel was also a natural historian. Instead of working with plants or minerals he worked with the stars and he spent his time building telescopes to see the stars and the rest of the time watching the stars. In the beginning, he believed there to be a known as a nebulae. Herschel can be considered a natural historian because he observed the natural world, in the process he made charts of all the stars and kept records of all that he saw. S. Wilcove and T. Eisner, The close observation of organisms—their origins, their evolution, their behavior and it encompasses changes in internal states insofar as they pertain to what organisms do. Some definitions go further, focusing on observation of organisms in their environment. Bartholomew, A student of history, or a naturalist, studies the world by observing plants. A common thread in many definitions of natural history is the inclusion of a component, as seen in a recent definition by H. W. Greene
3.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator. Since 1996, he has been the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. The center is part of the American Museum of Natural History, born and raised in New York City, Tyson became interested in astronomy at the age of nine after a visit to the Hayden Planetarium. After graduating from the Bronx High School of Science, where he was editor-in-chief of the Physical Science Journal, after receiving a masters degree in astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin in 1983, he earned his masters and doctorate in astrophysics at Columbia University. For the next three years, he was a research associate at Princeton University. In 1994, he joined the Hayden Planetarium as a staff scientist, in 1996, he became director of the planetarium and oversaw its $210-million reconstruction project, which was completed in 2000. From 1995 to 2005, Tyson wrote monthly essays in the Universe column for Natural History magazine, during the same period, he wrote a monthly column in Star Date magazine, answering questions about the universe under the pen name Merlin. Material from the column appeared in his books Merlins Tour of the Universe, Tyson served on a 2001 government commission on the future of the U. S. aerospace industry, and on the 2004 Moon, Mars and Beyond commission. He was awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal in the same year, from 2006 to 2011, he hosted the television show NOVA ScienceNow on PBS. Since 2009, Tyson hosted the weekly podcast StarTalk, a spin-off, also called StarTalk, began airing on National Geographic in 2015. In 2014, he hosted the television series Cosmos, A Spacetime Odyssey, the U. S. National Academy of Sciences awarded Tyson the Public Welfare Medal in 2015 for his extraordinary role in exciting the public about the wonders of science. Tyson was born as the second of three children in Manhattan, New York, into a living in the Bronx. His mother, Sunchita Maria Tyson, was a gerontologist for the U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and is of Puerto Rican descent. His African-American father, Cyril deGrasse Tyson, was a sociologist, human resource commissioner for New York City mayor John Lindsay, Tyson has two siblings, Stephen Joseph Tyson and Lynn Antipas Tyson. Tysons middle name, deGrasse, is from the name of his paternal grandmother. Tyson grew up in the Castle Hill neighborhood of the Bronx, from kindergarten throughout high school, Tyson attended public schools in the Bronx, P. S. 81, the Riverdale Kingsbridge Academy, and The Bronx High School of Science where he was captain of the wrestling team and his interest in astronomy began at the age of nine after visiting the sky theater of the Hayden Planetarium. He recalled that so strong was that imprint that Im certain that I had no choice in the matter, that in fact, during high school, Tyson attended astronomy courses offered by the Hayden Planetarium, which he called the most formative period of his life
4.
American Museum of Natural History
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The American Museum of Natural History, located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City, is one of the largest museums in the world. The museum has a scientific staff of 225, sponsors over 120 special field expeditions each year. Before construction of the present complex, the museum was housed in the Arsenal building in Central Park. Sherman, A. G. Phelps Dodge, William A. Haines, Charles A. Dana, Joseph H. Choate, Henry G. Stebbins, Henry Parish, the founding of the museum realized the dream of naturalist Dr. Albert S. Bickmore. Bickmore, a student of Harvard zoologist Louis Agassiz, lobbied tirelessly for years for the establishment of a natural history museum in New York. In 1874, the cornerstone was laid for the museums first building, the original Victorian Gothic building, which was opened in 1877, was designed by J. Wrey Mould, both already closely identified with the architecture of Central Park. The original building was eclipsed by the south range of the museum, designed by J. Cleaveland Cady. It extends 700 feet along West 77th Street, with corner towers 150 feet tall and its pink brownstone and granite, similar to that found at Grindstone Island in the St. Lawrence River, came from quarries at Picton Island, New York. The entrance on Central Park West, the New York State Memorial to Theodore Roosevelt and it leads to a vast Roman basilica, where visitors are greeted with a cast of a skeleton of a rearing Barosaurus defending her young from an Allosaurus. The museum is accessible through its 77th street foyer, renamed the Grand Gallery. The hall leads into the oldest extant exhibit in the museum, since 1930, little has been added to the exterior of the original building. The architect Kevin Roche and his firm Roche-Dinkeloo have been responsible for the planning of the museum since the 1990s. Various renovations both interior and exterior have been carried out including improvements to Dinosaur Hall and mural restoration in Roosevelt Memorial Hall, in 1992 the firm designed the new eight story AMNH Library. The museums south façade, spanning 77th Street from Central Park West to Columbus Avenue was cleaned, repaired and re-emerged in 2009, steven Reichl, a spokesman for the museum, said that work would include restoring 650 black-cherry window frames and stone repairs. The museums consultant on the latest renovation is Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. an architectural and engineering firm with headquarters in Northbrook, the museums first two presidents were John David Wolfe and Robert L. Stuart, both among the museums founders. The museum was not put on a sound footing until the appointment of the president, Morris K. Jesup. Jesup was president for over 25 years, overseeing its expansion, the fourth president, Henry Fairfield Osborn, was appointed in 1906 on the death of Jesup. Osborn consolidated the museums expansion, developing it into one of the worlds foremost natural history museums, F. Trubee Davison was president from 1933 to 1951, with A. Perry Osborn as Acting President from 1941 to 1946
5.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
6.
81st Street (Manhattan)
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The New York City borough of Manhattan contains 228 numbered east–west streets, the majority of them created by the Commissioners Plan of 1811. These streets do not run exactly east–west, because the plan is aligned with the Hudson River, rather than with the cardinal direction. Thus, the grids west is approximately 29 degrees north of true west, the grid covers the length of the island from 14th Street north. All numbered streets carry an East or West prefix, which changes from one to the other at Broadway below 8th Street, the numbered streets carry crosstown traffic. In general, but with exceptions, even-numbered streets are one-way eastbound. Most wider streets, and a few of the narrow ones, some streets in that area that do continue farther west change direction before reaching the Hudson River. 220th Street is the highest numbered street on Manhattan Island, but Marble Hill is also within the borough of Manhattan, the numbering system continues in the Bronx, up to 263rd Street. The lowest numbered street in Manhattan is East First Street, which runs through Alphabet City near East Houston Street, there is also a First Place in Battery Park City. East 1st Street begins just north of East Houston Street at Avenue A, peretz Square, a small triangular sliver park where Houston Street, First Street and First Avenue meet marks the spot where the grid takes hold. East 2nd Street begins just north of East Houston Street at Avenue C, the East end of East 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 7th Streets is Avenue D, with East 6th Street continuing further Eastward and connecting to FDR Drive. The west end of these streets is the Bowery and Third Avenue, except for 3rd Street and 4th Street, great Jones Street connects East 3rd to West 3rd. For 4th Street, see 4th Street, East 5th Street goes west to Cooper Square, but is interrupted between Avenues B and C by The Earth School, Public School 364, and between First Avenue and Avenue A by the Village View Apartments. West 8th Street is an important local shopping street, 8th Street between Avenue A and Third Avenue is called St Marks Place, but it is counted in the length below. M8 bus route operates eastbound on 8th Street and westbound on 9th Street between Avenue A and Sixth Avenue, 10th Street begins at the FDR Drive and Avenue C. West of Sixth Avenue, it turns southward about 40 degrees to join the Greenwich Village street grid, because West 4th Street turns northward at Sixth Avenue, it intersects 10th, 11th and 12th and 13th Streets in the West Village. The M8 bus operates on 10th Street in both directions between Avenue D and Avenue A, and eastbound between West Street and Sixth Avenue, 10th Street has an eastbound bike lane from West Street to the East River. In 2009, the section of 10th Street between Avenue A and the East River had bicycle markings and sharrows installed, but it still has no dedicated bike lane. West 10th Street was previously named Amos Street for Charles Chistopher Amos, the end of West 10th Street toward the Hudson River was once the home of Newgate Prison, New York Citys first prison and the United States second
7.
Central Park West
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Eighth Avenue is a north-south avenue on the west side of Manhattan in New York City, carrying northbound traffic below 59th Street. While the avenue has different names at different points in Manhattan, north of Frederick Douglass Circle, it resumes its Eighth Avenue designation, but is also known as Frederick Douglass Boulevard. The avenue ends north of 155th Street, and merges into the Harlem River Drive, the New York City Subway IND Eighth Avenue Line runs under Eighth Avenue. MTA Regional Bus Operations primarily operates two bus routes on the avenue, the northbound M20 serves Eighth Avenue between Abingdon Square and Columbus Circle, while the M10 serves the length of Eighth Avenue north of 59th Street in its entirety. The southernmost section is solely as Eighth Avenue between Abingdon Square and Columbus Circle. This portion of Eighth Avenue has carried traffic one-way northbound since June 6,1954, in fact, New York Citys annual gay pride parade takes place along the Greenwich Village section of Eighth Avenue. As its name indicates, CPW forms the edge of Central Park. It also forms the boundary of the Upper West Side. It runs 51 blocks from Columbus Circle to Frederick Douglass Circle, Central Park Wests expensive housing rivals that of Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side. Most of these housing cooperatives were built around 1930, replacing late 19th century hotels with the same names, some, including The Century, The San Remo, and The Majestic, are twin towers. Other landmarks and institutions along its length include the New-York Historical Society, the area from 61st to 97th Streets is included in the Central Park West Historic District. The building located at 55 Central Park West is the infamous Spook Central from the movie Ghostbusters, the famed New York City restaurant Tavern on the Green is located off of Central Park West, at 66th Street, within the grounds of Central Park. In 1899, while exiting a streetcar, Henry Bliss was run over by a taxi at CPW and West 74th Street, becoming the first person to be run down and killed by a motor car in the Americas. North of Frederick Douglass Circle at 110th Street in Harlem, it is Frederick Douglass Boulevard, Frederick Douglass Boulevard eventually terminates near the Harlem River at the Harlem River Drive around West 159th Street. While Central Park West has its own system, address numbers on Frederick Douglass Boulevard continue from where they would be if Central Park West used the Eighth Avenue numbering system. Formerly described as being like Detroit in its urban blight, it is now gentrified, especially in the restaurants along its route and this gentrification is partly due to massive city investment. The share of whites jumped to 12.4 percent from 2.3 percent, median household income rose 28 percent, to $34,694. Notes New York Songlines, Eighth Avenue, a walking tour
8.
Manhattan
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Manhattan is the most densely populated borough of New York City, its economic and administrative center, and the citys historical birthplace. The borough is coextensive with New York County, founded on November 1,1683, Manhattan is often described as the cultural and financial capital of the world and hosts the United Nations Headquarters. Many multinational media conglomerates are based in the borough and it is historically documented to have been purchased by Dutch colonists from Native Americans in 1626 for 60 guilders which equals US$1062 today. New York County is the United States second-smallest county by land area, on business days, the influx of commuters increases that number to over 3.9 million, or more than 170,000 people per square mile. Manhattan has the third-largest population of New York Citys five boroughs, after Brooklyn and Queens, the City of New York was founded at the southern tip of Manhattan, and the borough houses New York City Hall, the seat of the citys government. The name Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, a 1610 map depicts the name as Manna-hata, twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River. The word Manhattan has been translated as island of hills from the Lenape language. The United States Postal Service prefers that mail addressed to Manhattan use New York, NY rather than Manhattan, the area that is now Manhattan was long inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans. In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano – sailing in service of King Francis I of France – was the first European to visit the area that would become New York City. It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, a permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624 with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on the citadel of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called New Amsterdam, the 1625 establishment of Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is recognized as the birth of New York City. In 1846, New York historian John Romeyn Brodhead converted the figure of Fl 60 to US$23, variable-rate myth being a contradiction in terms, the purchase price remains forever frozen at twenty-four dollars, as Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace remarked in their history of New York. Sixty guilders in 1626 was valued at approximately $1,000 in 2006, based on the price of silver, Straight Dope author Cecil Adams calculated an equivalent of $72 in 1992. In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony, New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2,1653. In 1664, the English conquered New Netherland and renamed it New York after the English Duke of York and Albany, the Dutch Republic regained it in August 1673 with a fleet of 21 ships, renaming the city New Orange. Manhattan was at the heart of the New York Campaign, a series of battles in the early American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16,1776. The city, greatly damaged by the Great Fire of New York during the campaign, became the British political, British occupation lasted until November 25,1783, when George Washington returned to Manhattan, as the last British forces left the city
9.
Upper West Side
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The Upper West Side is sometimes also considered by the real estate industry to include the neighborhood of Morningside Heights. Like the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side is an affluent, primarily residential area with many of its residents working in areas of Midtown. Conversely, the Upper East Side is traditionally perceived to be home to commercial, the Upper West Side, along with the Upper East Side, is considered to be among New York Citys wealthiest neighborhoods. Upper West Side is bounded on the south by 59th Street, Central Park to the east, and its northern boundary is somewhat less obvious. Although it has historically been cited as 110th Street, which fixes the neighborhood alongside Central Park, it is now considered to be 125th Street. The area north of West 96th Street and east of Broadway is also identified as Manhattan Valley, the overlapping area west of Amsterdam Avenue to Riverside Park was once known as the Bloomingdale District. From west to east, the avenues of the Upper West Side are Riverside Drive, West End Avenue, Broadway, Amsterdam Avenue, Columbus Avenue, with the building of Lincoln Center, its name, though perhaps not the reality, was stretched south to 58th Street. This is a reversion to the historical name. The long high bluff above useful sandy coves along the North River was little used or traversed by the Lenape people, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the Upper West Side-to-be contained some of colonial New Yorks most ambitious houses, spaced along Bloomingdale Road. It became increasingly infilled with smaller, more villas in the first half of the nineteenth century. Its name was a derivation of the given to the area by Dutch settlers to New Netherland, likely from Bloemendaal. The Dutch Anglicized the name to Bloomingdale or the Bloomingdale District and it consisted of farms and villages along a road known as the Bloomingdale Road. Bloomingdale Road was renamed The Boulevard in 1868, as the farms and villages were divided into building lots, by the 18th century it contained numerous farms and country residences of many of the citys well-off, a major parcel of which was the Apthorp Farm. Within the confines of the modern-day Upper West Side, the road passed through areas known as Harsenville, Stryckers Bay, Bloomingdale, in the latter half of the 19th century, was the name of a village that occupied the area just south of 110th street. Much of the riverfront of the Upper West Side was a shipping, transportation, the Hudson River Railroad line right-of-way was granted in the late 1830s to connect New York City to Albany, and soon ran along the riverbank. One major non-industrial development, the creation of Central Park in the 1850s and 60s, parts of the neighborhood became a ragtag collection of squatters housing, boarding houses, and rowdy taverns. In 1868, the city began straightening and grading the section of the Bloomingdale Road from Harsenville north and it retained that name until the end of the century, when the name Broadway finally supplanted it. Development of the neighborhood lagged even while Central Park was being out in the 1860s and 70s
10.
Charles Hayden (banker)
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Charles Hayden was an American banker, businessman, financier and philanthropist. He was the partner of Hayden, Stone & Co. and his influence was such that James W. Gerard listed him among those who are too busy to hold political office. Noted contributions bearing his name include the Hayden Planetarium in New York, the Charles Hayden Planetarium at Bostons Museum of Science, instrumental in the financing of Arizona copper mines and smelters, the smelting community of Hayden, Arizona was named for him. Hayden was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Josiah Willard and Emma A. Hayden and his father was a shoe and leather merchant and he was educated in the public schools before enrolling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hayden studied mining investment and graduated in 1890, following graduation, he traveled for a year before taking a position as clerk with the Boston bank of Clark, Ward, & Co. Hayden was a bachelor his entire life and lived at the Savoy-Plaza Hotel in Manhattan and his hobbies included steeplechase and bridge. In 1892, Hayden joined with fellow Clark, Ward, & Co. clerk Galen L. Stone to open Hayden, Hayden gained a reputation for quick decisions and mastery of the brokerage business. Foreseeing the needs of electrification, Hayden made his fortune by investing in copper mining, the new investment firm prospered, expanding from its Boston base to open a New York City branch in 1906. In addition to his firm, Hayden was involved in other business operations. During his lifetime he was appointed director to 89 companies, Hayden was involved with philanthropy most of his life. During the First World War, he donated US$100,000 per year to the American Red Cross and he later became interested in helping youth and in 1926 was revealed to have anonymously donated US$100,000 to establish an uptown New York City branch of the Boys Club. This was followed in 1933 when, at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in addition to youth, Hayden routinely donated to aid the poor. In 1934, he donated US$150,000 to New Yorks American Museum of Natural History for creation of a planetarium which was named after him and this was followed the next year when he headed a committee which raised $9,440,000 to save New Yorks charitable hospitals. Hayden is also notable for his donations to Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, the campus is home to a residence hall which bears his name. The Charles Hayden Foundation makes grants of between US$10,000,000 and US$20,000,000 annually to support programs for children in the Boston and New York metropolitan areas
