Venue: Rose Center for Earth and Space
Town: Upper West Side, US

The Rose Center for Earth and Space is a part of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The Center's complete name is The Frederick Phineas and Sandra Priest Rose Center for Earth and Space. The main entrance is located on the northern side of the museum on 81st Street near Central Park West in Manhattan's Upper West Side. Completed in 2000, it includes the Hayden Planetarium, which was originally opened in 1935. Neil deGrasse Tyson is its first and, to date, only director. The center is an extensive reworking of the former Hayden Planetarium, whose first projector, dedicated in 1935, had 2 successors previous to the current one. The original Hayden Planetarium was founded in 1933 with a donation by banker and philanthropist Charles Hayden of Hayden, Stone & Co. It was designed by architects Trowbridge & Livingston and opened in 1935. Its construction was funded by a $650,000 loan from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and a $150,000 donation from Charles Hayden. Its mission was to give the public "a more lively and sincere appreciation of the magnitude of the universe... and for the wonderful things which are daily occurring in the universe." Joseph M. Chamberlain, hired as an assistant curator in 1952, became Chairman of the Planetarium in 1956. In 1960, a Zeiss Mark IV projector was installed, followed by a Zeiss Mark VI projector and new seats in 1993. In January 1997, the original Hayden Planetarium was closed and demolished. In August 1999, a new, customized Zeiss Mark IX projector was installed, accompanied by a digital dome projection system that provides a 3-D visualization of the universe based on images generated in real time by a Silicon Graphics supercomputer. Before the building opened, a black tie fundraiser was held at the nearly finished museum to celebrate the millennium on December 31, 1999. Philippe Petit, best known for his 1974 tightrope walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, and Eartha Kitt performed at