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News 12 is On the Road at the New York Aquarium in Brooklyn to speak with Craig Piper, WCS Director of City Zoos and Interim Director of the New York Aquarium, on the aquarium's grand reopening.

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Interview: WCS directors talks about the reopening of New York Aquarium in Brooklyn

No, no, no Anthony. We actually have someone even cooler. We have the director of the new york aquarium craig piper joining us this morning. Thank you so much for coming out. Oh, thank you for joining us this morning on this beautiful day in coney Island. Yeah, you couldn't ask for much better weather than that. So speaking of which, um are you ready for the summer season? We are very excited, July one is a very important milestone for the New York Aquarium for the first time Since 2012 when we were hit by Superstorm Sandy, all of our exhibits will be again open to the public and available. That's amazing. And we're going to talk about that more in just a sec. But of course sandy, that was a major milestone. And how were things disrupted by the hurricane? Well, like so much of the tri state area. The aquarium right on the shoreline of coney Island was devastated and you know, we lost much of the infrastructure that operates the aquarium. We were closed for seven months after the storm and then reopened little by little And with help from the city of new york, the state and fema. It's taken us 10 years to get to this point, but we're so excited to reach a point where now everything is reopened and restored and some of the exhibits were mentioning as well even behind us. I've also recently re opened. So can you talk about some of those? Sure. So ocean wonder sharks are icon exhibit opened in 2018. Then behind us, the spineless exhibit that focuses on marine invertebrates, jellyfish, cuttlefish, octopus. Some real favorites of guests Opened in in in 2020 and then play aquarium behind us here is focused for our families with young Children. It's an interactive play space where kids can explore what it would be like to be a fish in a coral reef or a kelp forest and try on that world. And that was supposed to earlier open a few years ago. But the pandemic closed that because we couldn't have any things with highly interactive exhibits. So that's open this year. Behind us is the seaside Cafe, our restaurant that just opened a few weeks ago. So we're thrilled to have a restaurant back on campus. And then the last thing that will be opening this friday is sea change. Can you talk a little bit more about that and what we can expect with that climate change related. So people will remember maybe the sea cliffs exhibit had underwater viewing and that was completely flooded out in the storm. We've been able to restore that. And appropriately, we've done an exhibit called sea change that focuses on climate change and the impact of climate change on coastal environments and the animals that live in coastal environments. So it's telling that important story of how we have to build resiliency into the aquarium as well as all our coastal communities. Yeah, really exciting stuff here. And of course you can come out to the new york aquarium. They'll be open throughout the summer. Really exciting stuff. And you couldn't ask for much better weather as well then today. Beautiful. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much for joining us craig and for more on what to expect with the weather. Let's take it over to mike Rizzo with more on the forecast mike.

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