Museum of the City of New York curators are busy preparing for the grand reopening of the South Street Seaport Museum on Fulton Street.
Starting Thursday, Jan. 26, the famed maritime museum, which was on the brink of closure last year, will be showcasing 16 galleries worth of furnishings, photography, videos and relics from its permanent collection, according to the exhibit’s co-curator, Donald Albrecht. Items on display will include “Mannahatta,” a digital rendering of Manhattan circa 1609, as well as an estimated 4,000 images taken by a few hundred Occupy Wall Street photographers documenting the demonstration.
The Seaport Museum will also be showing a 22-minute film depicting the history of New York City, and another film about Terminal 8 at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Three other galleries, entitled “Made in New York,” will be devoted to contemporary costumes and furniture designed and crafted in the city, while another exhibit dubbed “Time and Tide” will focus on the history of water and the Seaport.
“Our thinking was, we had to disprove the naysayers who said, ‘the South Street Seaport [museum] is not going to happen’ — so we decided to open it very quickly,” said Albrecht. “It’s not meant to suggest this is the ultimate shape the museum is going to take.”
The museum’s opening hours will be 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday. For more information, visit seany.org.
— Aline Reynolds
