Watch: Natural History Museum Cleans Iconic Blue Whale

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — One of New York City's most popular attractions is due for its annual cleaning, and it's an oddly captivating event to watch.

Staff at the American Museum of Natural History will give the iconic 94-foot-long, 21,000-pound blue whale model in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life a good vacuuming starting Thursday, Sept. 5. The museum, as is tradition, will live stream a portion of the cleaning at 1:30 pm.

Being suspended from a museum ceiling is a hard day's work, and the museum's whale accrues a layer of dirt and gunk throughout the year. To wash the entire whale model, a replica of the largest living animal known to man, the museum effectively shuts down the attraction for up to two days. But the cleaning itself has become a sort of annual show, with whale-lovers flocking to see their favorite life-sized model get its yearly cleaning. Last year's stream was viewed by 22,000 people.

Watch the whale wash below:

The cleaning itself is quite an undertaking. A museum worker equipped with a high-powered vacuum and a long-handled brush must be hoisted in the air on a mechanical lift to reach every spot on the model.

Waiting patiently for the whale wash to begin? Here are some blue whale facts, via the museum:

• Blue whales have been hunted to near extinction.
• The blue whale is the largest animal alive today, but it's also fast. Blue whales can travel up to 30 miles per hour.
• Blue whale calls can be heard 620 miles away.
• The blue whale's diet consists mainly of small crustaceans called krill.