Barnum's American Museum, Entertainment museum at Broadway and Ann Street, Manhattan, US
Barnum's American Museum was a five-story building at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street in Manhattan that displayed taxidermy animals, wax figures, and live creatures. The building contained several exhibition halls, a basement aquarium, and a lecture hall where theatrical performances also took place.
Barnum acquired the former Scudder museum in 1841 and continuously expanded the collection with new attractions and performers. A fire destroyed the building in July 1865, and another blaze also destroyed his second museum three years later.
The name of the museum reflected Barnum's claim to present all of American culture under one roof. Visitors could gather in social salons that became meeting places especially popular with middle-class women.
The museum stood on what is now part of the Financial District and can only be explored through historical records and a few surviving photographs today. A virtual reconstruction allows visitors to browse the exhibits online.
During the fire, some monkeys and snakes managed to escape through the windows and flee into the streets of Lower Manhattan. Many onlookers initially mistook the burning wax figures for real people and tried to rescue them from the flames.
Location: Manhattan
Inception: 1841
Official opening: January 1, 1842
Website: https://lostmuseum.cuny.edu
GPS coordinates: 40.71102,-74.00852
Latest update: December 5, 2025 08:05
This collection documents major buildings that have disappeared throughout history. It includes religious structures such as the 15th-century Porcelain Tower of Nanjing, whose glazed bricks gleamed in sunlight, as well as destroyed palaces, theaters, and public buildings from various periods and continents. Among the lost structures are the Colossus of Rhodes, the Temple in Jerusalem, the Great Buddhas of Bamiyan, the Berlin Wall, and the World Trade Center. The reasons for the disappearance of these structures range from warfare to natural disasters to deliberate demolition for urban redevelopment. The Palais du Trocadéro in Paris was demolished in 1937 to make way for the current Palais de Chaillot. The Crystal Palace in London burned down in 1936. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed in 1940, just months after opening. This compilation provides insight into lost architectural achievements and the historical circumstances of their disappearance.
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