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Natural History Museum Debuts Garden, Glass Entrance

Two years after construction began and one year after planting started, the Natural History Museum opens its new front yard and entrance this weekend.

The Sunday, June 9 debut will also mark the venue’s 100th anniversary. The Nature Gardens and Nature Lab, a 3.5-acre outdoor exhibit, is the new green space that serves as the entrance to the museum; it includes walking paths, a pond, bird watching stations and fruit trees.

Also opening over the weekend was the Otis Booth Pavilion, a glass entryway that includes a 63-foot fin whale specimen. A new bridge facing Exposition Boulevard leads to the six-story glass entrance.

The new elements are among the final steps before the culmination of a nearly decade long, $135 million transformation that has included the Dinosaur Hall, which debuted in 2011, the restoration of the 1913 Building and other interior improvements. A new 14,000-square-foot permanent exhibition called Becoming Los Angeles, which looks at 500 years of local history, opens July 14.