T. rex fossil survives monster cleaning in museum dust age

NEW YORK — Trenton Duerksen’s eyes scoured the massive skull before him, darting left and right as he searched for his nemesis: particles of fine, sticky dust that resemble gray snow.

Perched atop a scissor lift in the dinosaur wing of the American Museum of Natural History, Duerksen was standing eye to eye with Tyrannosaurus rex. His task for the day: ridding the 39-foot-long specimen of dust and dander that accumulates on it from 5 million visitors passing through the museum every year.

Duerksen started with the head. “Top-down, that’s the most important rule,” he said, explaining how the approach limits airborne dust and minimizes repeat cleaning.

Armed with an ordinary household duster, a vacuum strapped to his back, and wands and brushes of various sizes and shapes, Duerksen worked his way across the surface of the head, cleaning 2-inch strips at a time.

When he got to the dinosaur’s jaw, he switched to what looked like a cartoonishly oversized toothbrush, moving its bristles over and between 6-inchlong, conical teeth.

“I go top to bottom, side to side, and along the gum line,” Duerksen said. No flossing needed.

Duerksen is the natural history museum’s “exhibition maintenance manager,” meaning that he is in charge of cleaning all the objects on display in the museum’s 1 million-plus square feet of exhibition space and fixing anything that breaks.

On this particular morning, Duerksen was cleaning T. rex, a task he performs twice a year, usually over one or two mornings before the museum is opened to the public.

But all year long, Duerksen is sweeping, dusting and repairing things that become cracked, frayed or somehow damaged — everything from the museum’s 94-foot-long fiberglass blue whale to tiny shells, sponges and butterflies.

“It’s fun when it’s really dirty,” Duerksen said. “You get a lot of satisfaction from seeing the fossil all shiny again.”

Duerksen, 38, is an artist by training. Before joining the natural history museum two years ago, he worked as a professional illustrator and sculptor.

“We look for somebody who has good hands, the ability to handle things firmly but carefully — somebody who has attention to detail,” Dean Markosian, director of exhibitions at the museum, said. A zest for cleaning helps. Like many people, Duerksen developed a fascination with dinosaurs at a young age in his native Kansas and began drawing them around age 5.

“They looked like enormous monsters,” Duerksen said. “The imagination required to understand them is astonishing.”

But Duerksen never thought of dinosaurs as being just for kids, retaining his fascination and passion for the creatures through adulthood.

When the job opportunity came up at the museum, Duerksen said, “it was kind of a no-brainer. I mean, I get to stare at the T. rex.”