Aquarium to expand shark exhibit with help of $7.5M private gift
The New York Aquarium’s shark exhibit is one of the Coney Island institution’s prime attractions, along with the aquarium’s friendlier otters, seals and walruses. Visitors are fascinated by these beautiful, yet deadly, predators.
Since 2008, the New York Aquarium has been planning to radically renovate its 90,000-gallon shark tank into an exhibit more than four times the size, but problems with funding slowed these plans.
Yesterday, however, a major private gift of $7.5 million from Wildlife Conservation Society trustee Barbara Hrbek Zucker and her husband, Don Zucker, was announced, along with the design for a new “Ocean Wonder: Sharks!” building, in a ceremony presided over by Mayor Bloomberg.
The City’s Public Design Commission approved the design plan earlier this month for the 57,000-square-foot exhibit building — as part of a public-private initiative between Bloomberg and the Wildlife Conservation Society announced in 2009.