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Whale Washing: Iconic Natural History Museum Whale Gets a Cleaning

Museum worker Brittany Janaszak cleaned the 94-foot-long blue whale model at the American Museum of Natural History in New York on Tuesday.
Brittany Janaszak, Exhibition Maintenance Manager at the American Museum of Natural History uses a vacuum to clean a 21,000-pound fiberglass blue whale exhibit at the museum's Milstein Hall of Ocean Life on July 8.
Brittany Janaszak, Exhibition Maintenance Manager at the American Museum of Natural History uses a vacuum to clean a 21,000-pound fiberglass blue whale exhibit at the museum's Milstein Hall of Ocean Life on July 8.TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP - Getty Images

Museum worker Brittany Janaszak, seen here on a lift, cleans a 94-foot-long blue whale model at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, New York, on Tuesday. Installed in 1969, the 21,000 pound life-size blue whale model is made of fiberglass and polyurethane and was based on a female blue whale found in 1925 off the tip of South America.

Image: Museum worker Brittany Janaszak cleans a 94-foot-long blue whale model at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan
Museum worker Brittany Janaszak, seen here on a lift, cleans a 94-foot-long blue whale model at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, New York, on July 8.ADREES LATIF / Reuters