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.
“I feel so sad,” said Garner, a retired educator who brought classes to the museum for years and credits her son’s love of science to summers spent learning at the academy’s summer camp. “This was such a great big part of our lives.”
Garner, a West Philadelphia resident, came with her son, Addison Garner, and her granddaughter, Sage Young, 7, to see the academy one last time.
Garner was far from alone.
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.
On Sunday, a steady stream of visitors inside the museum took photos, touched the hard but smooth skin of a pangolin — a scaly anteater — being circulated by museum educators, and guided toddlers in dinosaur costumes through exhibits.
“I can’t believe this,” one woman cried, peering over a second-floor balcony at a packed room full of visitors examining dinosaur bones.
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.
The William Penn Foundation offered Drexel a lifeline to keep the academy open for a year, saying it would pay operating costs while the museum studies the feasibility of its long-term survival.
Drexel has not specifically said it declined the offer, but a spokesperson said that the university doesn’t have a viable proposal for a “permanent, sustainable path forward for the academy’s museum.”
The foundation’s 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.
“200 years of natural history can’t end on our watch,” the billboard said.
Erin Kelly agreed.
“My 11-year-old grew up coming here,” said Kelly, who lives in Kensington and brought her son, Phoenix Johnson, to the museum for one more lesson Sunday. “I’ve taught him about our city, and country, and cultural treasures just by coming here.”
In some ways, it felt like an ordinary Sunday at the museum — kids digging for fossils in the sand, parents pushing strollers, people fake-climbing into dinosaur mouths for photos.
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.
Artist Thomas LaPine traveled to Philadelphia to witness the museum’s last moments. He set up his easel, unpacked his paper and pencils and oil pastels, and sketched.
There was something magical in seeing people from all walks of life absorb the exhibits, LaPine said — watching children gain a sense of magic, a perspective on where the world has been, to perhaps think of where it’s going.
“It’s a pretty big tragedy to me, a big deal; that’s why I’m here,” LaPine said. “I’m paying my respects.”
LaPine said he planned to turn his sketches into a painting.
“Hopefully, it’s a little time capsule of a time when people decided to cut off this resource,” he said.
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 — messages about what the museum meant to families, pleas to save it.
“Stay Open!” a child wrote on a pale yellow page, with a frowny face. “Love Henry.”
“This has been a place of solace, fun and learning for me since childhood,” someone else wrote. “I was here before COVID, I was there after, and I’m here now. I hope this isn’t the last time.”
A place of ‘incalculable value’
Multiple politicians have urged Drexel to accept the William Penn Foundation’s offer.
State Sen. Nikil Saval (D., Philadelphia) said in a statement that “the museum is of incalculable value to both our region and to international scientific and cultural fields,” and said the academy must remain on Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
City Councilmembers Nina Ahmad and Jeffery Young Jr. said in a statement that the foundation’s offer comes at a crucial time and allows officials the time “to 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.”
Mourning a friend
The museum spent its final hours with those who loved it most: thousands of visitors, who basked in its wonders, staring starry-eyed at collections of dinosaur bones, taxidermy, and petrified bugs.
At the minutes ticked toward 5 p.m. — closing time — hundreds processed out of the old Victorian building one last time and protesters chanted in the rain, holding aloft plastic candles for a planned vigil at Philadelphia City Hall.
Suzanne Ryan, a retired teacher and grandmother who has volunteered at the academy since June, held a sign reading, “The Academy is a treasure and must be saved.”
Emotion caught in her voice as she implored each departing guest to sign a petition to save the endangered museum (which by Sunday had well over 100,000 signatures.)
She’s been livid about the closing. She became a docent because of her granddaughter’s love for the dinosaurs. And as an educator, she said: “You close museums, you close minds.”
In the steady rain Sunday evening, many protesters shouted angrily about Drexel University’s seeming coolness. They hoped and urged for a miraculous resurrection.
“We’re trying to protect this place from Drexel University,” shouted museum member Corey Miller, of South Philadelphia. “They’re trying to shut down a 200-year-old institution with 30 days’ notice. It’s a public embarrassment.”
“Don’t let Drexel off,” others chanted. “Tell Drexel to get out of the way.”
Longtime visitors Christina Stone and her daughter, Tais Millan, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke through tears.
“Philly loves this museum and they can save it,” said Millan. “I don’t know why Drexel isn’t trying to save it.”
Some parents said they belatedly brought their children to the museum on the final day just so they could share their childhood experiences.
Others, like Mary Fetter, said the day was an especially sad one for her daughters, Maeve, 10, and Margaret, 9, who are devoted visitors.
“We’ve been going here four years,” said Maeve, holding her mother’s hand outside the shuttered museum. The museum is important to the identity of the city — and her family, Mary Fetter said as protesters began to march toward City Hall in the rain.
The little girl is taking it hard, her mother said. She and her sister loved visiting the dinosaurs, the dioramas, and the live animals in the children’s rooms.
Now it all may be gone. For good.
“It’s really special to us,” said the little girl. “It’s hard to say goodbye.”
Staff writers Peter Dobrin, Susan Snyder, and Mike Newall contributed to this article.
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