Tickets Now On Sale for New Exhibition at South Street Seaport Museum: Maritime City

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. 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.

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 Cityemploys 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.

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}

About South Street Seaport Museum Admission Tickets

Regular admission to the Seaport Museum is $18 for adults, $15 for seniors and students, and $5 for children under the age of 18. Admission for Seaport Museum members is free. Tickets are available for purchase online and in-person. Museum Admission tickets grant access to the 1885 tall ship Wavertree and 1908 lightship Ambrose at Pier 16 as well as all exhibitions on view in the introduction galleries inside Schermerhorn Row located at 12 Fulton Street. Admission tickets for March 12 and later will include entry to the forthcoming Maritime City exhibition in A.A. Thomson & Co. located at 213 Water Street. In addition to regular admission, Pay What You Wish admission is available for purchase in-person at any check-in station at the Museum. seaportmuseum.org/general-admission

More About the Exhibition

Housed within the historic A.A. Thomson & Co. building—a historical artifact in its own right—Maritime Cityshowcases a wide range of 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. Objects on view include long-held artifacts and archival materials not previously seen by the public, alongside recent acquisitions that highlight the present and future of the Museum’s collecting. With such a wide array of items on view, this all-ages exhibition promises something for everyone.

Highlights within this expansive exhibition include:

• The 22-foot long 1935 builder model of the celebrated ocean liner RMS Queen Mary

• Paintings by the renowned maritime painters James Edward Buttersworth, Antonio Jacobsen, and Gordon Grant

• Unusually large turn-of-the-century glass plate negatives by the photography studio of George P. Hall & Son—including one of the fireworks display for the opening of the Williamsburg Bridge

• A rare surviving wheel from the French ocean liner SS Normandie

• Recently acquired items such as a contemporary fine art photograph by artist Jeremy Dennis, an enrolled Tribal Member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, and more to come and explore.

• Fascinating miniatures and uniquely small artifacts that create a “Corner of Curiosities”

Also on view are examples of archeology that has been excavated from areas in the South Street Seaport Historic District and Lower Manhattan, and historical and modern views of New York from the 1600s to today. These include artworks that document milestones in New York history such as the physical expansion of the land in Lower Manhattan at the turn of the 19th century, the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883, the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in 1886, and the containerization of the Port of New York and New Jersey in the mid-20th century. Just as the history of New York is a combination of stories, Maritime City employs artifacts to highlight the historic mosaic of a global metropolis born from its connections to the sea.

Additionally, Maritime City features educational items that invite you to get hands-on with history. Across all three floors, visitors of all ages are invited to further engage with the exhibition through interactive features designed to captivate every interest to better understand how New York City was formed by its oceanic links to the world.

Visitors are invited to:

• Open flat file drawers to uncover historical arts and crafts techniques, including technical drawings and ship plans, letterpress broadsides, lithographs, and wood engravings and discover the tools used to create these fascinating pieces

• Use stereographic viewers to see how people experienced places around the globe in the 19th century

• Touch and feel select artifacts such as Dutch-era bricks and oyster shells from the teaching collection of the Museum

• Explore items from the archives and special collections of the Museum that are too fragile for display, through video displays and touch screens

Maritime City is organized by the South Street Seaport Museum. Curatorial oversight was coordinated by Martina Caruso, Director of Collections and Exhibitions, with Michelle Kennedy, former Collections and Archives Manager; Zak Risinger, Director of Engagement and Public Programs; and Mathieu Rivoal, Visitor Experience Supervisor.

Design and production were coordinated by Carley Roche, Associate Registrar and Rob Wilson, Bowne & Co. Art Director and Operations Manager; with Duggal Visual Solutions, Full Point Graphics, GK Framing, Marvel, Object Mounts, Renfro Design Group, South Side Design & Building, and UOVO.

About A.A. Thomson & Co. Warehouse

This Italianate cast iron and stone warehouse, located at 213–215 Water Street, was designed by the renowned New York City architect Stephen D. Hatch (1839–1894) in 1868 for Alexander and William A. Thomson of A.A. Thomson & Co.. Before the structure was built, this lot was occupied by two three-story buildings, originally part of a 1750 water lot grant, on what would have been considered one of the principal streets in New York City.

Working with the celebrated preservation architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle, the Seaport Museum is transforming the historic 12,000-square-foot warehouse into a large-scale exhibition space, a hub for engaging educational programming, and a gathering space for the community. Once renovated, the building, which has not been updated in decades, will include a new climate control system, systems hardened against flooding, an elevator, and full accessibility to welcome all visitors into previously inaccessible space on “little” Water Street. At the Building Rededication Ceremony for the warehouse in October 2024, the Museum rededicated the historic warehouse to a renewed purpose, converting this former industrial space to an education venue, welcoming all to see themselves reflected in the Museum. seaportmuseum.org/about-thomson

About the South Street Seaport Museum

The South Street Seaport Museum, located in the heart of the historic seaport district in New York City, preserves and interprets the history of New York as a great port city. Founded in 1967, the Museum houses an extensive collection of works of art and artifacts, a maritime reference library, exhibition galleries and education spaces, working 19th century print shops, and an active fleet of historic vessels that all work to tell the story of “Where New York Begins.” seaportmuseum.org

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