South Street Seaport Museum Financially Stable For Next Few Months

A passerby peering through the entrance to the Seaport Museum's 12 Fulton St. galleries, which have been closed since April. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

sIt’s steady as she goes at the South Street Seaport Museum, at least for now.

That’s what the maritime museum’s interim president Jonathan Boulware told Community Board 1’s Seaport Committee on Monday evening when he gave an update on the struggling institution.

Boulware, who was named interim waterfront director after the Museum of the City of New York pulled out of its rescue role at the museum, said he agreed to take the helm because he believes there is “vigor” behind the city’s effort to save the 46-year-old museum.

Boulware said the city, which has installed a temporary three-person board, is searching for a more permanent “arrangement” for leadership at the Seaport Museum during the transitional phase. While there is no date set for dissolving the board, Boulware gave a wide, three-to-nine month timeframe on the museum’s cash flow, which includes a $3.15 million infusion from the city.

“It’s hardly a bright picture, but...it is my full intent to keep us as solvent as we can for as long as we can,” he said. “For the moment, we’re on secure financial footing, given our limited operations. We have the resources that we need in the short-term to pay staff to keep open what we have open.”

The museum’s 12 Fulton Street galleries remain shuttered due to a broken ventilation system that was irreparably damaged by Hurricane Sandy. Its six-vessel fleet is in flux, with some ships in need of restoration and others already undergoing repair. Bowne & Co. Stationers and Bowne Printers, on Water Street, are up and running, as is Sal Polisi’s woodcarver shop next door.

The temperature in the galleries, which have been closed since April, is so high that even staff aren’t permitted inside, Boulware noted. Asked whether they might eventually be moved to another building, Boulware replied, “I couldn’t even say.”

“I think at this point,” he added, “we are looking at all options that make a viable museum going forward.”

As for the vessels, the W.O. Decker, used occasionally as a tugboat, still requires a “fairly significant chunk of work,” Boulware said, in order to be able to carry passengers out into the harbor. The schooner Lettie G. Howard will be brought back to the Seaport in the fall from a Maine shipyard, where it is undergoing repairs. Boulware is hoping to organize an exhibit aboard the Ambrose lightship, and he is in conversations with people in Germany to send the four-masted barque Peking back to Hamburg, where it was built. If that happens, the Wavertree, an iron-hulled sailing ship currently docked at Pier 15, would likely take its place on the south side of Pier 16.

Meanwhile, Boulware has already begun outreach to museum members—recently sending them membership renewal letters—and is looking for new volunteers to help care for the museum’s ships and artifacts as well as assisting visitors.

Seaport Committee chair John Fratta said the board would do anything possible to support the museum, including setting up a community task force to brainstorm strategies for a permanent rescue plan.

“We all know that if we lose the museum, we have no Seaport,” he said. “All we’ll have is a mall [at Pier 17]...and we really don’t want that.”