Seaport Museum to Launch Spring Season

The South Street Seaport Museum is kicking off its spring/summer season on Saturday, April 25 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. with a variety of activities for kids and adults alike.

While most of the activities will be held on Pier 16, some will take place inside the museum’s newly reopened lobby at 12 Fulton St. on Schermerhorn Row, now called the Visitor Service Center.

On a “Seaport Story Wall” inside the center, visitors of all ages are invited to paint a mural expressing what a seaport means to them. They can get temporary tattoos and try their hand at throwing lines to lasso a bollard at the center.

Out on the pier, opposite Fulton Street, visitors can take docent-led tours of the museum’s “street of ships,” participate in a Seaport scavenger hunt and visit a mobile print shop where an employee of Bowne Printers will operate a tabletop Kelsey press and hand out giveaways. They can also attend educational programs and learn how sailors use navigational tools such as compasses and charts, as well as observe some of the creatures that call the New York Harbor’s estuary habitat their home.

Visitors can also sign up for a six-month “introductory” museum membership for only $1.

To inaugurate the new season, Councilwoman Margaret Chin will ring the bell on the ship Ambrose at 2 p.m. The ships on Pier 16––Ambrose, Pioneer, Wavertree, Lettie G. Howard, W.O. Decker and Peking––will officially open.

This season, the museum’s educational programs, offered to elementary through high school students, will be expanded, with triple the number of bookings compared to last year, according to William Roka, the museum’s operations assistant. The Mini Mates program, to be held on Thursdays and Fridays, will offer arts, crafts, music and movement activities for children from 18 months to four years old.