New Objects Coming To The Maritime City Exhibition At The South Street Seaport Museum

On Wednesday, September 24, 2025, the South Street Seaport Museum will unveil a new rotation of objects in its acclaimed exhibition, Maritime City. This update will introduce 55 newly installed artifacts from the Museum's collections and archives, offering fresh insights into New York City's rich maritime history.

Spanning three floors, Maritime City features 540 carefully selected items that reveal how New York's identity as a global capital of culture and commerce is deeply rooted in its origins as a seaport. With this rotation, visitors will encounter a wide range of materials-from intricately crafted ship models and rare China Trade goods to oil paintings, scrimshaw, early 20th century photographs, and hand-colored prints-that reflect the depth and diversity of the Museum's collections.

• New Museum acquisitions such as:
• One of ten ink drawings by artist Harriet Finck
• A decorative tankard from the Gilded Age that belonged to the famous Alice Vanderbilt Morris
• In collaboration with Works on Water 2025 Triennial, the Seaport Museum has added three contemporary Water Art pieces on view interspersed throughout the exhibition as an intervention and reaction to the Museum's collection. These works are on loan to the Museum by artists Sarah Cameron Sunde and Mary Mattingly, as well as the Works on Water artists' collective
• On the first floor, key artifacts that will be now on display include:
• A photographic print by Barbara Mensch depicting the interior of Paris Cafe
• A painting by Gordon Grant depicting a clipper ship by South Street and the Brooklyn Bridge
• A ship model depicting the first American sail and steam paddle ship that crossed the Atlantic Ocean, the Savannah
• A selection of bricks that are the foundation of much of today's New York City