WHO:

Captain Jonathan Boulware, President and CEO, South Street Seaport Museum, Laurie A. Cumbo, Commissioner of Cultural Affairs for New York City, performances by Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra, funders, supporters, architects, exhibition designers, friends, and community members

WHAT:

Ribbon Cutting and Opening Celebration for the South Street Seaport Museum’s Inaugural Exhibition Maritime City in the newly renovated 1868 A.A. Thomson & Co. Warehouse. The highly anticipated forthcoming exhibition highlights how New York City, as we know it today, arose from the sea.

Schedule:

5:30pm – Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

6:30pm – Remarks and Reception

Exhibition Tours to follow

RSVP: Michelle Tabnick, (646) 765-4773, [email protected]

PHOTOGRAPHERS AND CREWS MUST RSVP IN ADVANCE AND MUST SHOW PRESS CREDENTIALS TO JOIN FOR BUILDING TOURS AND RECEPTION.

South Street Seaport Museum announced that admission tickets are now on sale for the new exhibition Maritime City. Opening to the public on March 12, 2025, the inaugural exhibition will showcase 540 deliberately selected objects from the Museum’s collections of 80,000 works of art, historical artifacts, and archival records, representing a wide range of time periods, themes, and materials. The exhibition spans the first three floors of A.A. Thomson & Co. building—the newly-renovated, historic 1868 warehouse, located at 213 Water Street (between Fulton and Beekman Streets). Recognized for its architectural significance within the South Street Seaport Historic District, the building was restored by the South Street Seaport Museum and renowned preservation firm Beyer Blinder Belle.

“It has given us great satisfaction to be a working partner with the South Street Seaport Museum all these years,” said Richard Southwick, FAIA, Partner Emeritus at Beyer Blinder Belle. “We’ve come full circle by completing this project. After all the changes the district has gone through, it is immensely gratifying to watch it become a stronger and stronger destination, and the Thomson Warehouse will continue to play a role in that evolution.”

The opening of Maritime City and the reopening of the A.A. Thomson & Co. building will be accompanied by a range of dynamic public programs designed to invite visitors of all ages to make a deeper connection to New York’s rich maritime heritage.

Maritime City | Beginning March 12, 2025

Tickets Now Available | Wednesday–Sunday | 11am–5pm | 213 Water Street

Pre-book your admission tickets today for Maritime City, a highly-anticipated exhibition that highlights how New York City, as we know it today, arose from the sea. Throughout the extensive three-floor exhibition, objects on view underscore how the city’s identity as a global capital of culture and finance is rooted in its origins as a seaport.

As you walk through 540 deliberately-selected objects from the collections and archives of the Seaport Museum, you will discover how the waterways, people, and industries of the Greater New York area—including all the boroughs, Long Island, and the Lower Hudson Valley—led to the creation of a truly diverse city. By sharing the material culture of New York and its people, the objects on display highlight stories of the working class people employed by ships, shipping lines, and other local industries throughout history, as well as the emigrant workers and immigrant families that came through the port as their first stop in America.

In Maritime City, you will experience a celebration of communities that have come together to grow New York. For four centuries, the port of New York has connected people to the world through the exchange of goods, ideas, languages, and cultures. Indigenous Lenape people were the first stewards of the waterways, creating trade routes connecting Manahatta to the sea. In the 17th-century European colonists, enslaved Africans, and migrants built on this foundation to give birth to a restless and ambitious city. Later waves of immigration, would grow a world capital formed by its oceanic links to the world. Just as the history of New York is woven from many stories, Maritime City employs artifacts to present a tapestry of a global metropolis shaped by the sea. The South Street Seaport Museum interprets these origins, a museum for a maritime city.

Marvel led exhibition concept and design for Maritime City. “Over the years, Marvel has worked closely with the South Street Seaport Museum to protect and revitalize spaces damaged by Hurricane Sandy. We are grateful to expand our relationship through the exhibition design of Maritime City, and congratulate the Museum, Beyer Blinder Belle, and the public in celebrating the Thomson Warehouse restoration and re-emergence of the collection. This re-emergence from a decade in storage provides an opportunity to reposition the Museum’s collection alongside the history of industry, craft, and the movement of goods and people. Placement of objects within a system of modular oak boxes, inside cabinets, on top of pallets, and within immersive videos provides multiple points of view and invites fresh perspectives. The design encourages visitors to connect to the textures, stories, and functions of artifacts to their respective containers — shipping crates, trunks, sea-going vessels, and warehouses — and affirms our fascination with unpacking—everything from internet merch to our ever-evolving relationship to history,” said Dennis Vermeulen, AIA, Partner, Marvel.

Maritime City is scheduled to open to the public in March of 2025. Reserve your admission tickets now to secure your place and join the Seaport Museum’s mailing list to receive updates and announcements. seaportmuseum.org/maritime-city