Interior view of the Underground Zoo

1965

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Title
Interior view of the Underground Zoo
Identifier
MSP285.B018.F22.I02
Source Identifier
MSP285.B018.F22.I02
Description
Caption on the back of the photograph reads, “The largest and one of the most fascinating exhibits in Pittsburgh’s new Underground Zoo features beavers in the three phases of their everyday life: underwater, on the banks of a stream, and in their burrow. J. Whitley Cavitt, who designed the exhibits, is seen peering beneath water level. Observation windows for other animal burrows may be seen at the right. The Underground Zoo was financed principally by funds provided by the Sarah Mellon Scaife Foundation.” Pittsburgh’s Underground Zoo first opened to the public in June 1962 and was the largest of its kind in the world. To view the animals, visitors to the cave-like building simply pushed buttons that lit the exhibits. The largest and popular exhibit in the cave was an 18 by 10 foot beaver dam and lodge. The beavers put on a show in the water, on the banks of their "stream” and in their burrow which they enter underwater. The “Underground Zoo” has been renamed the “Niches of the World.”
Genre
photographs
Subject
Highland Park Zoo (Pittsburgh, Pa.).Underground Zoo.
Highland Park Zoo (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
Zoos--Pennsylvania--Pittsburgh.
Source
Allegheny Conference on Community Development Photographs, 1892-1981, MSP 285, Library and Archives Division, Senator John Heinz History Center
Contributor
Detre Library & Archives, Heinz History Center
Collection
Allegheny Conference on Community Development Photographs
Rights Information
Copyright Not Evaluated. The copyright and related rights status of this Item has not been evaluated. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use.
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/