Philadelphia Natural History Museum Closes at 198

The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, the oldest natural history museum in the Americas, closed its public museum on September 30, just shy of its 200th anniversary, NPR reported. The Philadelphia institution, founded in 1812 and opened to the public in 1828, shuttered its doors after Drexel and Academy leadership cited post-pandemic declines in attendance and rising operating costs. The closure has sparked protests, a City Council investigation with subpoena power, and a last-minute bridge-funding offer aimed at reopening the museum.

A Landmark of Firsts

The Academy holds a singular place in scientific history. It was the first place in the world to display a dinosaur skeleton, in 1868, and its dinosaur exhibits have drawn generations of children ever since. Its collections are among the most significant in the world: more than 19 million biological specimens, fossils, and archives, including Thomas Jefferson’s fossil collection and plant samples gathered by Lewis and Clark.

According to the Drexel and Academy leadership announcement, the institution also holds more than 73,000 type specimens—holotypes that scientists worldwide use as references for defining and naming species—along with a library of more than 75,000 titles, including rare volumes dating to 1529.

The museum’s fate became entangled with Drexel University’s in 2011, when the two institutions announced an affiliation that made the Academy a subsidiary of the university while it retained its own board and nonprofit status. At the time, the Academy’s president touted “a rock-solid balance sheet with a $51 million endowment.”

The Sudden Closure

The end came quickly. On September 1, 2026, Drexel President Antonio Merlo and Academy board chair Suzanne Biemiller announced that the museum would close a month later. “We did not reach the decision to close the Academy’s museum lightly or in haste,” the statement read, describing “fundamental changes in the economics of the Academy’s operational model.” Academy President and CEO Scott Cooper stepped down the same day.

The short notice stunned supporters. “When they announced the one-month notice it was a surprise for everybody,” said Isa Betancourt, a former Academy entomology staffer who helped organize the Save the Academy campaign, speaking to NPR. “It’s like the leadership didn’t even try to keep it open.”

The museum closed to the public on September 27, with the official closure taking effect September 30. Its final weeks saw attendance surge—revenue in the last month was more than 20 times higher than the prior September—a fact critics point to as evidence the museum could have survived with more aggressive promotion.

The Fight to Reopen

Thousands have rallied against the decision. According to Billy Penn, roughly 200 people in dinosaur costumes and rain-soaked candlelight gathered outside the museum on its final night and marched to City Hall. An online petition has drawn more than 114,000 signatures.

City Council has moved aggressively. Councilmembers Nina Ahmad and Jeffery Young Jr. introduced a resolution to hold hearings with subpoena power over Drexel, and the council proposed zoning changes to complicate any sale or redevelopment of the 1876 building. “Their leadership did not approach Philadelphia City Council to say that they were in dire need of support. Not one time,” Councilmember Anthony Phillips said at a rally, WHYY reported. “That is irresponsible.”

Less than a week before the closing date, the William Penn Foundation offered a year’s worth of bridge funding to buy time for a longer-term solution. Drexel said it is exploring the possibility but would need a plan for long-term sustainability before considering reopening. As of late September, the university said it had not received a formal proposal with a defined level of financial support.

Conflicting Accounts

Drexel has described the closure as part of a plan to concentrate resources on the Academy’s scientific mission, noting that research and collections access will continue. “To be clear, the Academy of Natural Sciences is not closing tomorrow. Only the museum supported by ANS is closing,” Dr. Andrew Smith, head of Drexel’s Department of Biodiversity, Earth & Environmental Sciences, told The Triangle, the university’s independent student newspaper.

Former staff members dispute the official narrative. In a WHYY explainer, they traced the decline partly to a strategic pivot away from the museum’s core family and dinosaur audience toward adult science enthusiasts, including a $3 million art gallery opened in March 2020. “There was a big push to not be known as the dinosaur museum in Philadelphia,” said Jacquie Genovesi, who worked at the Academy for 34 years before being laid off in 2025. “It was a poor decision.”

Other former employees said the drop in attendance began before the pandemic, contradicting the official explanation. “People didn’t want to visit because they had taken so much of the fun and the interesting aspects out of the museum,” said Katie Marquardt, a former membership lead.

The closure also unfolded against a difficult backdrop for the broader museum field. A 2025 survey by the American Alliance of Museums found that a third of members had government grants and contracts cancelled, and more than two-thirds were affected by executive orders in some way, as NPR reported.

What’s Next

The Academy’s research enterprise, collections, and library will continue, and Drexel says it will preserve access for students and researchers. But the public museum’s future—and that of its aging building on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway—remains unresolved. The Logan Square building, constructed in 1876, has no historic designation and is zoned Residential Multi-Family, leaving it vulnerable to redevelopment. The Philadelphia Historical Commission confirmed that no one has ever nominated it for historic status.

Gov. Josh Shapiro and Mayor Cherelle Parker have both backed efforts to preserve the museum, and Philadelphia Deputy Mayor Trish Wellenbach was named a senior advisor to the Academy. Yet reopening a shuttered institution is far harder than saving one before it closes. Philadelphia has rescued struggling cultural landmarks before—the Barnes Foundation’s art collection and the Please Touch Children’s Museum—but those campaigns happened in time.

For Isa Betancourt, that distinction matters. “I know that things could have been managed perhaps a bit differently with more valuing and respect for the institution,” she told Billy Penn. “For those reasons, I do not accept this outcome.” The City Council hearings, expected to examine the Academy’s finances and the decision-making behind the closure, will be the next test of whether the institution’s doors—closed at 198—can open again.