Henry’S Back

After months of being refurbished behind screens, the giant elephant that greets millions of visitors to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History went back on public display Friday. The world’s largest mounted animal - he’s 13 feet 2 inches tall at the shoulder - Henry has been moved only a few feet, but he seems transported thousands of miles, standing now in a display of the plants and animals of his native Africa. Arriving in 1959, the elephant had simply been placed on a round platform, facing the door used by about 80 percent of the museum’s 6 million annual visitors. Now he is turned slightly and moved a few feet off center, his left tusk facing the main door. The move also means visitors arriving in the atrium from the lower floor no longer spend time on the escalator staring at Henry’s rear end.