Beginning March 2025
Tickets Now Available | Wednesday–Sunday | 11am–5pm | 213 Water Street | Pay What You Wish
Pre-book your tickets today for Maritime City, a highly-anticipated forthcoming exhibition that reveals how New York City, as we know it today, arose from the sea. Throughout the extensive three-floor exhibition, you will see 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 525 carefully-curated objects from the Seaport Museum’s Collections and Archives, 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 global metropolis.
In Maritime City, you will experience a celebration of all the communities that have come together to grow New York. This exhibition tells how, for four centuries, the port of New York has connected people to the world through the exchange of goods, ideas, languages, and cultures. By sharing the material culture of New York City 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. A selection of artifacts and artworks on view share the stories of enslaved Africans, and honor the Indigenous people who were the first inhabitants of the region the Seaport Museum now calls home.
Maritime City is scheduled to open to the public in March of 2025. Reserve your tickets now to secure your place and join the Seaport Museum’s mailing list to be one of the first to receive updates and announcements. Access to the exhibition galleries requires walking up six steps, with wheelchair access available via a platform lift. Each of the three floors with public offerings are accessible by elevator.
Want to learn more about Pay What You Wish General Admission tickets? Visit the FAQ page for more details.
More About the Exhibition
Housed within the historic A.A. Thomson & Co. building—a historical artifact in its own right—Maritime City showcases 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 have taken place 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 Museum’s teaching collection
- Explore items from the Museum’s archives and special collections, too fragile for display, through video displays and touch screens
Maritime City is scheduled to open to the public in March of 2025. Reserve your tickets now to secure your place and join the Seaport Museum’s mailing list to be one of the first to receive updates and announcements.
A Sampling of What’s On View
Exhibition Support
Major support for Maritime City is provided by Theodore W. Scull; the New York State Council on the Arts, with support from Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Additional support is provided by the South Street Seaport Museum Board of Trustees.
Special thanks to Michael H. Harrison, Christina Krumrine, Kamau Ware, and Patricia Zedalis.
Acknowledgements
Maritime City is organized by the South Street Seaport Museum.
Curatorial Oversight: Martina Caruso, Director of Collections and Exhibitions; Michelle Kennedy, former Collections and Archives Manager; Zak Risinger, Director of Engagement and Public Programs; Mathieu Rivoal, Visitor Experience Supervisor.
Design and Production: Carley Roche, Associate Registrar; Rob Wilson, Bowne & Co. Art Director and Operations Manager; with Duggal Visual Solutions, Full Point Graphics, GK Framing, Marvel Architects, Object Mounts, Renfro Design Group, South Side Design & Building, and UOVO.
About the Collections
The collections and archives of the South Street Seaport Museum document the rise of New York as a port city, and its role in the development of the economy and business of the United States through social and architectural landscapes with over 28,000 works of art and historical artifacts, and over 80,000 archival materials.
Over 150 Years of History
This newly restored Italianate cast iron and stone warehouse, located at 213–215 Water Street has seen the evolution of New York City through more than 150 years. Learn more about the history of this architectural landmark 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.