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National Aquarium (Baltimore)

1981 establishments in MarylandAquaria in MarylandBuildings and structures in BaltimoreInner Harbor, BaltimoreLandmarks in Baltimore
Museums established in 1981Private congressionally designated national museums of the United StatesTourist attractions in BaltimoreZoos in Maryland
BaltimoreNationalAquarium
BaltimoreNationalAquarium

The National Aquarium – also known as National Aquarium in Baltimore and formerly known as Baltimore Aquarium – is a non-profit public aquarium located at 501 East Pratt Street on Pier 3 in the Inner Harbor area of downtown Baltimore, Maryland in the United States. Constructed during a period of urban renewal in Baltimore, the aquarium opened on August 8, 1981. The aquarium has an annual attendance of 1.5 million visitors and is the largest tourism attraction in the State of Maryland. The aquarium holds more than 2,200,000 US gallons (8,300,000 L) of water, and has more than 17,000 specimens representing over 750 species. The National Aquarium's mission is to inspire conservation of the world's aquatic treasures. The aquarium's stated vision is to confront pressing issues facing global aquatic habitats through pioneering science, conservation, and educational programming.The National Aquarium houses several exhibits including the Upland Tropical Rain Forest, a multiple-story Atlantic Coral Reef, an open-ocean shark tank, and Australia: Wild Extremes, which won the "Best Exhibit" award from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in 2008. The aquarium also has a "4D Immersion Theater." The aquarium opened a marine mammal pavilion on the adjacent south end of Pier 4 in 1990, and currently holds six Atlantic bottlenose dolphins. Of the six, five were born at the National Aquarium, one was born at another American aquarium. In 2003, the National Aquarium and the much older and independent National Aquarium in Washington, D.C., formed an alliance to operate as a single National Aquarium with two sites. This arrangement continued until 2013, when the Washington location closed permanently.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article National Aquarium (Baltimore) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

National Aquarium (Baltimore)
Baltimore

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Latitude Longitude
N 39.284398 ° E -76.606936 °
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Marine Mammal Pavilion

500
21202 Baltimore
Maryland, United States
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BaltimoreNationalAquarium
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United States lightship Chesapeake (LV-116)
United States lightship Chesapeake (LV-116)

United States lightship Chesapeake (LS-116/WAL-538/WLV-538) is a museum ship owned by the National Park Service and on a 25-year loan to Baltimore City, and is operated by Historic Ships in Baltimore Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. A National Historic Landmark, she is one of a small number of preserved lightships. Since 1820, several lightships have served at the Chesapeake lightship station and have been called Chesapeake. Lightships were initially lettered in the early 1800s, but then numbered as they were often moved from one light station to another. The name painted on the side of lightships was the short name of the Light Station they were assigned to and was the day time visual aspect of the many Aids to Navigation on board lightships. The United States Coast Guard assigned new hull numbers to all lightships still in service in April 1950. After that date, Light Ship 116 was then known by the new Coast Guard Hull number: WAL-538. In January 1965 the Coast Guard further modified all lightship hull designations from WAL to WLV, so Chesapeake became WLV-538. Chesapeake had many redundant systems in order to maintain her position through most storms. The 5000-pound (2300 kg) main anchor was backed up by a second 5000-pound anchor attached to the side of the ship. The 30,000 candela main light was also backed up with a secondary lamp and the Radio Locator Beacon also had a backup system. On more than one occasion (in 1933, 1936, and 1962) the main anchor chain snapped during violent storms and the ship had to use her engines to stay in place and drop her second anchor.

Baltimore Public Works Museum
Baltimore Public Works Museum

The Baltimore Public Works Museum was located at 751 Eastern Avenue, Pier 7 of the Inner Harbor, Baltimore, Maryland. This museum provided a behind-the-scenes glimpse of how a large city provides public works utility services to its citizens. Exhibits also explained street lighting, road maintenance, and trash removal. An outdoor sculpture called Streetscape was an intricate model of a network of phone lines, street lights, storm drains and pipes for water, gas, and sewage disposal. The building housing this display is an operating sewage pumping station built in 1912. The museum opened in 1982 and was operated under the auspices of the Baltimore Department of Public Works. On February 3, 2010, the city announced that the museum would close immediately due to budget constraints.Since then, various efforts have been made to re-open the Baltimore Public Works Museum. Attendees of the centennial celebration event of the city's Montebello Water Filtration Plant in 2015 were given blue bags by the Baltimore City Department of Public Works that had printed on them www.PublicWorksMuseum.org, a website associated with a group called "Friends of the Public Works Museum" whose goal "is to reopen the Public Works Museum", though by 2017 that did not lead to a valid website. In 2016, the building was made a Baltimore City Landmark. In 2018, a new effort was announced to renovate the facility and open an expanded museum called the "Public Works Experience".The Public Works Experience Board of Directors is working to rejuvenate the museum into a hands-on, STEM-focused engagement to help visitors learn about the importance of public works. The facility is now open to the public on the second Saturday of the month, from 10am - 2pm.