Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
The place behind the detail.
A zoological society of 1895, carved buildings and modern habitats offer several ways into the story of the Bronx Zoo.
On this page
A society for wildlife
The New York Zoological Society was founded in 1895 and opened the Bronx Zoo on 8 November 1899. Today the same organisation, renamed the Wildlife Conservation Society, runs the zoo.
The zoo stands in Bronx Park, and the Bronx River runs through its grounds.
Astor Court
The original permanent buildings, by Heins and LaFarge, stand in Astor Court; they were designated a New York City landmark in 2000.
Carved animals on their facades, such as the elephant heads of the 1908 Zoo Center, recall the zoo’s early years.
Habitats of later years
African Plains opened in 1941, World of Birds in 1972, Congo Gorilla Forest in 1999, Tiger Mountain in 2003 and Madagascar! in 2008.
This history belongs to the place and the people who shaped it. The History page offers a longer introduction, and the timeline gives a short route through selected milestones.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
