Interview 1738 – Caption Index: 34
Well, What were, so it sounds like you had a good relationship with him. Read More
Well, What were, so it sounds like you had a good relationship with him. Read More
What other things did you learn from him and what were his strengths and his weakness?… Read More
(chuckles) What a marvelous question. There, and I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but there was no curatorial staff. Mr. Cully was a knowledgeable experienced zoo man, an animal man, and then became an administrator and a construction man and development man, everything you need to be to be a zoo… Read More
And he was, we didn’t use the term nerd in those days, but if we had, he would have been the nerd. But he was a very positive, pleasant guy. And I learned a lot from him too. But then he went off to other zoos. So knowing there was… Read More
It was very disheartening. And it had a very small zoo library. Read More
And during my lunch hour, I’d always be reading books up there, which they scoffed at, “Huh, who’s this kid reading all these books?… Read More
Did you interact with the curatorial staff?… Read More
Did people stay on in their different areas?… Read More
Did they talk to one another? How did they interact?… Read More
And then outside, they had the bear pits and they were like the old postcards. We all have those old postcard, where the bars went up and curved over the top. But they had a American black bears, grizzly bears, polar bears. And then they had the grottoes built by… Read More
I’m sure Mr. Cully was thinking of the African Plains at the Bronx and he wanted to model it after that to some extent. He didn’t have lions over a boat, looking in, but he did have this collection of hoofstock. So together on the veldt, running together were zebras,… Read More
So, I mean, that was an exciting zoo for me. I wished it had more reptiles. Birds, they didn’t have a lot of birds, but some, mostly predatory birds. So it was a pretty neat. Read More
And he said, “You did okay, kid.” And he told Mr. Cully. And so that was it. Read More
What was the zoo like though when you first started, what was its physical makeup?… Read More
It was, there’s no perimeter fence. It was one main, what they called, a lot of zoos had this, I guess, the main zoo building, and this was built 1909. And it was one of these combination buildings. There was a row of barred cages on one side of the… Read More
They’ve expanded it and improved it since then. So they put hippos in the interior and a pool. And primates units for like red patas monkeys and green monkeys, mona monkeys. On the other side, a few reptiles. And at the far end was the elephant stall. And they had… Read More
And he said, “We’ve got a regular keeper going on vacation. We’re gonna train you for his job.” Oh my gosh, that was a dream come true. So I, and this was in what we called the north end with some miscellaneous animals, aoudad and tahr and camels, and tapirs,… Read More
And, oh my gosh, I thought I’m a failure. (chuckles) But after a couple of days, I learned, I remember what he said and I was patient and I learned that animals accepted me and by he time we got back, things were going well. So then he goes around… Read More
In other words, is he gonna pass, fail type thing, you know?… Read More
And of course the first day they give you a long pole with a nail on the end and a gunnysack and say, go clean all the papers in the parking lot. But that was good. That was good for me. And I thought this I gotta do. I’m gonna… Read More