Continuing the tour of the New York Aquarium, we cross the courtyard that contains the Sea Cliffs/Sea Change exhibit to a huge, shiny new building, home to the Aquarium's new flagship exhibit.
When Super Storm Sandy struck the region in 2012, it inflicted significant damage on the facility and pushed back, by several years, the construction and opening of Ocean Wonders; Sharks! It was worth the wait. Opening in 2018, this building is a fascinating display focused on the most famous fish in the sea, and encourages visitors to appreciate rather than fear these charismatic predators.
Visitors enter through a tunnel that passes through a beautiful coral reef, home to a few species of smaller sharks - wobbegongs, zebra shark, blacktip reef shark - as well as other colorful fish. The exhibit meanders through a combination of animal areas, featuring smaller fish and invertebrate tanks, as well as lots of attractive, innovative, interactive education devices. Visitors can learn about the adaptations of sharks, track the movements of tagged sharks in the wild, and appreciate the diversity of this family. They can also learn about the threats facing sharks, including a display on shark-finning, which I thought did an excellent job addressing an ugly, brutal conservation issue in a sensitive manner. They can also visit a mock diner counter to learn about sustainable seafood choices a la Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program.
The highlight of the building is the main shark tank, styled after Hudson Canyon. Its depths are patrolled by sand tiger, sandbar, and nurse sharks. Large shark tanks tend to be kind of bland at many aquariums, kept open to allow maximum swimming space for species that need to swim constantly. This one I found to be decently furnished, while the curved backdrop makes it look like it goes on forever.
Additional sharks - and sturgeon, and stingray - are seen outside in a large, outdoor tank that seems very out of place, until you learn that it was originally for belugas, and the sharks are kind of filler at this point. There is also a nearby amphitheater for seal and sea lion demonstrations.
An additional building nearby houses Spineless Wonders, the invertebrate gallery. The giant Pacific octopus is the star here, but the display also features Japanese spider crab, flamboyant cuttlefish, and various jellies, crustaceans, and starfish. I especially enjoyed the photo wall and surrounded some of the smaller tanks, which did a great job of highlighting the enormous diversity of invertebrates in the sea and what a vast percentage of ocean life they represent. It's a neat little space with some cool species, but it can feel a bit cramped, especially when a large group enters.
The building then passes into the Playquarium. You don't always see a designated children's zone in an aquarium, and this was a fun space for kids to run around, climb, and play, interspersed with some kelp forest aquariums. There are also touch tanks, a small shorebird exhibit, and a neat little display of eastern oysters, an ecologically and economically important species which has been making a comeback in recent years.
I'm not the connoisseur of aquariums that I am of zoos, but New York Aquarium has since become one of my favorites. It doesn't have the rarities that some other major aquariums have (I'm sorry not to have been when they had walruses, not too many years ago), and much of its collection and exhibitry may seem a bit boilerplate. But what it does have, it does well. The collection is solid, the exhibits are well done for the species present, the indoor/outdoor layout and history give it a unique feel, and the conservation credentials are excellent. I especially admired how the Aquarium is willing to be vocal and direct about threats to wildlife and what needs to be done to fight them, be it climate change for sea mammals or finning for sharks.
It's a very enjoyable aquarium that can be tied into a larger visit to Coney Island, a walk on the beach, or a trip to the WCS Prospect Park Zoo, just a few subway stops away.
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