Opened in 1993, this exhibit provides homes for walruses, sea otters, seals, and penguins. But in addition to watching them cavort on the surface, visitors look up from windows set in a below-ground exhibit hall. The 90,000 gallon shark tank is home to many species of large marine predators. It also contains the safe from the Andrea Doria which sank in 1956. During the 1980s, explorer Peter Gimbel recovered it and it was dramatically opened in a live TV special.
Next door is another large tank featuring sealife native to the New York region.
Looking through the small windows to the cramped interior provides visitors with some inkling of the engineering skill, bravery, and discomfort that Beebe employed in his efforts to go, literally, where no man had gone before. Adjacent to this is the Hudson River exhibit. A big tank features some of the larger fish, sea turtles, and other organisms that live in the New York Bight, where the river and the Gulf Stream join. Smaller exhibits feature species found in the freshwater sections closer to the ri ver's headwaters in the Adirondack Mountains. Along the wall are interesting photographs and information about historical aspects of this famous waterway.