Historedia
Episode 1 of 2

Soft Opening

When
December 9, 1896 (inferred)
Where
Castle Garden, Battery Park
Part of
New York Aquarium opens

A soft opening occurred on December 9, 1896, the day before the official opening of the New York Aquarium at Castle Garden.

The facility held a soft opening on December 9, 1896, preceding the official opening on December 10, 1896. The date is derived from passages stating the official opening followed a soft opening the previous day.

Sources

  1. New York Aquarium Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-18
  2. Castle Clinton Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-09

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.