Talk Bronx New York

A red eyed tree frog that makes it’s home in the Bronx. The Bronx Zoo is celebrating its 110th birthday this year.

A red ruffled lemur mesmerizes with giant golden eyes

When the Bronx Zoo first opened its gates to the public in 1899, William McKinley was in the White House, the first city subway line was being dug, and the paperclip had just been patented. So much has changed since, but the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Bronx Zoo remains an integral part of New York City’s character.

A Palawan peacock is one of the zoo’s feathered inhabitants.

In honor of the largest metropolitan zoo in the United States turning 110 years old, here’s a list of 110 things every New Yorker should know about the Bronx Zoo.

1. The Bronx Zoo opened to visitors on November 8th, 1899.
2. On opening day, the zoo featured 843 animals in 22 exhibits.
3. The zoo borders the south side of the New York Botanical Garden.
4. Most of the land on which the zoo was built was previously owned by Fordham University.
5. Fordham sold it to the city for only $1,000 with the stipulation that the lands be used for a zoo and garden.
6. More than 236 million guests have visited the zoo since its opening.
7. With 265 acres, the Bronx Zoo is the largest metropolitan zoo in the United States.
8. The zoo employs over 750 full-time staff per year.
9. Theodore Roosevelt and William Hornaday, the Bronx Zoo’s first director, helped form the American Bison Society (ABS) at the zoo in 1905.
10. The buildings in Astor Court were designed by the firm of Heins & Lafarge, who also designed the original plans for the cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights. Read more..

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Bronx Zoo Lion House Goes Green as Cockroaches, Crocs Move In

The Lion House at the Bronx Zoo in New York is shown in its original state in this circa 1903 photo. The new exhibit “Madagascar!” will be on display at the restored Lion House starting June 20.

A springy, rubberized floor made from recycled plastic and used tires cushions my steps as I move from a leafy jungle to a spiny forest at “Madagascar!” — the new exhibit in the restored 1903 Lion House at New York’s Bronx Zoo.

Waiting inside are 100,000 (or so) hissing cockroaches, Nile crocodiles and, more adorable, furry, long-tailed lemurs.

The historic structure, designed by Heins & La Farge as part of the zoo’s original Astor Court campus, represented state-of- the-art zoo design at the turn of the 20th century. The lions could stroll through a passageway connecting their indoor and outdoor cages — a true innovation at the time.

Some two decades ago, the lions were relocated so they could roam more freely in a natural-looking setting, leaving the building vacant — until now.

Restored by FXFowle Architects of New York, the Lion House retains its ornate charms — the limestone and brick facade, the stately Ionic columns, the copper roof and carved heads of jungle cats on the terra-cotta cornices — while incorporating some very 21st-century ideas for green design.

The architects deepened and widened the basement to hide the building’s infrastructure — like the geothermal wells that eliminate the need for a cooling tower and the system that recirculates the “gray water” that goes down the drain in bathroom sinks. Now it’s used to water the many plants in the exhibit, reducing consumption by 49 percent.

Pillowed plastic skylights maximize daylight and also control the interior temperature.

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