{"id":295260,"date":"2026-09-27T23:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T23:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/295260\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T23:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T23:46:09","slug":"thousands-of-philadelphians-visit-the-academy-of-natural-sciences-museum-on-its-last-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/295260\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of Philadelphians visit the Academy of Natural Sciences museum on its last day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n

Rene Garner cried even before the doors swung open Sunday to admit visitors to the last-ever day of operation for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel so sad,\u201d said Garner, a retired educator who brought classes to the museum for years and credits her son\u2019s love of science to summers spent learning at the academy\u2019s summer camp. \u201cThis was such a great big part of our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garner, a West Philadelphia<\/a> resident, came with her son, Addison Garner, and her granddaughter, Sage Young, 7, to see the academy one last time. <\/p>\n

Garner was far from alone. <\/p>\n

About 8,000 fans streamed through the museum on Saturday, with some flying in from across the country to squeeze in one last visit, a museum leader said.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, a steady stream of visitors inside the museum took photos, touched the hard but smooth skin of a pangolin \u2014 a scaly anteater \u2014 being circulated by museum educators, and guided toddlers in dinosaur costumes through exhibits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t believe this,\u201d one woman cried, peering over a second-floor balcony at a packed room full of visitors examining dinosaur bones.<\/p>\n

Drexel and the academy announced this month the museum was closing amid declining attendance and economic pressures. The academy has been open to the public since 1828, and is considered the birthplace of American paleontology.<\/p>\n

The William Penn Foundation offered Drexel a lifeline to keep the academy open for a year<\/a>, saying it would pay operating costs while the museum studies the feasibility of its long-term survival. <\/p>\n

Drexel has not specifically said it declined the offer, but a spokesperson said that the university doesn\u2019t have a viable proposal for a \u201cpermanent, sustainable path forward for the academy\u2019s museum.\u201d<\/p>\n

The foundation\u2019s offer was on the minds of many on Sunday. Canvassers from a group attempting to save the academy chatted up visitors as they walked into the museum. They relayed their message from a billboard truck parked outside.<\/p>\n

\u201c200 years of natural history can\u2019t end on our watch,\u201d the billboard said.<\/p>\n

Erin Kelly agreed. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy 11-year-old grew up coming here,\u201d said Kelly, who lives in Kensington<\/a> and brought her son, Phoenix Johnson, to the museum for one more lesson Sunday. \u201cI\u2019ve taught him about our city, and country, and cultural treasures just by coming here.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some ways, it felt like an ordinary Sunday at the museum \u2014 kids digging for fossils in the sand, parents pushing strollers, people fake-climbing into dinosaur mouths for photos.<\/p>\n

But there were definite signs of the end: the crowds, the activists handing out flyers, the picked-over gift shop, where signs told patrons that there was no stock left. A smiling, teal, stuffed dino purse seemed incongruous, a burst of cheer amid so much regret.<\/p>\n

Artist Thomas LaPine traveled to Philadelphia to witness the museum\u2019s last moments. He set up his easel, unpacked his paper and pencils and oil pastels, and sketched.<\/p>\n

There was something magical in seeing people from all walks of life absorb the exhibits, LaPine said \u2014 watching children gain a sense of magic, a perspective on where the world has been, to perhaps think of where it\u2019s going.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty big tragedy to me, a big deal; that\u2019s why I\u2019m here,\u201d LaPine said. \u201cI\u2019m paying my respects.\u201d<\/p>\n

LaPine said he planned to turn his sketches into a painting.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, it\u2019s a little time capsule of a time when people decided to cut off this resource,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In Outside In, a hands-on exhibit designed for young children that featured animals to meet and exhibits to climb on, the walls were papered with notes on colorful paper \u2014 messages about what the museum meant to families, pleas to save it.<\/p>\n

\u201cStay Open!\u201d a child wrote on a pale yellow page, with a frowny face. \u201cLove Henry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been a place of solace, fun and learning for me since childhood,\u201d someone else wrote. \u201cI was here before COVID, I was there after, and I\u2019m here now. I hope this isn\u2019t the last time.\u201d<\/p>\n

A place of \u2018incalculable value\u2019<\/p>\n

Multiple politicians have urged Drexel to accept the William Penn Foundation\u2019s offer.<\/p>\n

State Sen. Nikil Saval (D., Philadelphia) said in a statement that \u201cthe museum is of incalculable value to both our region and to international scientific and cultural fields,\u201d and said the academy must remain on Benjamin Franklin Parkway.<\/p>\n

City Councilmembers Nina Ahmad<\/a> and Jeffery Young Jr. said in a statement that the foundation\u2019s offer comes at a crucial time and allows officials the time \u201cto take a breath and better understand how we got here and what we can do to keep the Academy open for hundreds of more years to come. All parties must be willing to explore every option to save this precious institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Staff writers Peter Dobrin and Susan Snyder contributed to this article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min Rene Garner cried even before the doors swung open Sunday to admit visitors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[122139,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-295260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-academy-of-natural-sciences-last-day-closing-drexel","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}