Osborn, Fairfield, 1959

Much of this series consists of topically-arranged correspondence and administrative records from the Christopher W. Coates era. Although the primary correspondent is Coates, Curator James W. Atz and Assistant Director Carleton Ray are also represented. The files document the construction, opening, and initial operation of the New York Aquarium [NYA] in Coney Island, as well as its ongoing operation and expansion. There is extensive correspondence between Coates and NYZS President Fairfield Osborn—as well as material from the Aquarium Planning Committee—that documents the funding and planning of exhibits, donor relations, and the efforts to build what would become the Osborn Laboratories of Marine Sciences. The files include a particularly extensive set of correspondence between Coates, Atz, Ray, and their colleagues at their peer institutions, many of whom Aquarium staff consulted in conjunction with the reopening of the New York Aquarium on Coney Island. These materials include correspondence with Jacques Cousteau and other luminaries of marine conservation and the aquarium field.

The Aquarium’s animals are also well represented, with files and records documenting fish, electric eels, penguins and other birds, walruses, and seals. These materials include detailed files, including photographs, concerning the Aquarium’s acquisition of a pair of abandoned baby walruses, including one, Ookie, who would go on to become an Aquarium superstar featured in a Popular Science pictorial and a children’s book. There is also documentation of the Aquarium’s efforts to debunk the popular children’s ‘sea-monkey’ kits as nothing more extraordinary than brine shrimp. Additionally, the series provides glimpses of the surrounding cultural and political climate of the era, for example as detailed in the Aquarium’s efforts to obtain the property of its neighbor, the Cyclone roller coaster, and in the display of an Atlas inter-continental ballistic missile on its grounds as part of Armed Forces week in 1959, at the height of the Cold War.

The series also includes a mixed set of correspondence and administrative records dating from the tenures of Aquarium Directors Paul L. Montreuil and Ross F. Nigrelli. The majority of the documents were written either to or by the two Directors, with additional material by Curators Carleton Ray and James Atz, Associate Curator Robert Morris, NYZS General Directors John Tee-Van and William Conway, and the Genetic Laboratory’s Klaus Kallman. Topics include the acquisition and maintenance of NYA collections, budgets and NYC capital requests, the Aquarium’s Coney Island Boardwalk property, and U.S. and international aquariums. There is also documentation of the Aquarium’s master planning processes. Of special note are materials pertaining to the Aquarium’s plans for the first Earth Day in 1970.

Finally, the series includes monthly reports from the Director of the Aquarium to the Executive Committee of the NYZS Board of Trustees. These records include draft versions and documents missing from the separate, official collection of Executive Committee reports. The reports document the progress of research efforts by OLMS staff, Aquarium attendance, exhibit planning, the acquisition and health of Aquarium animals, and special events such as Ookie’s debut and the Atlas missile displays.