It was one of the oddest things in the Carnegie, and few people ever made it that far after an afternoon of gawking at dinosaurs: a whole gallery on the third floor, the Wyckoff Hall of Arctic Life, dedicated to the “Polar World.” Now, after decades of informing visitors one or two at a time, the exhibit is finally being taken down. But it is being taken down slowly and carefully; and since the hall is also the only route in and out of the Alcoa Hall of American Indians—an exhibit even more invisible to most museum visitors, but one well worth your time—the few visitors who make it to the third floor have a chance to see what happens when a longstanding exhibit vanishes.
The space will be used for a greatly expanded Egyptian gallery, which will doubtless be more popular. But it will not be as odd. Every museum that can afford one has a good Egyptian gallery; few museums below the Arctic Circle had a gallery of Polar Life.
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