BY ALINE REYNOLDS | Maritime lovers who cherish the Seaport Museum New York are reaching out to the city for management help, the latest push in their efforts to save the dying institution. Members of Save Our Seaport, a grassroots group formed in the spring to devise a rescue plan for the museum, arranged a closed meeting with officials from the Museum of the City of New York on Fri., July 15, to discuss a possible partnership.
The Seaport Museum, which is virtually closed, is no longer accepting new members. The only open exhibition space is aboard the Peking cargo ship and the Ambrose lightship Thursdays through Sundays.
Meeting with the City Museum was “an excellent step forward,” according to David Sheldon, one of the group’s founders. “It was a wonderfully productive initial meeting. The museum was receptive to all the information we provided, and both sides are open to future meetings.”
“We had no firm proposal — just ideas, such as putting the ships back to work,” said “Save Our Seaport” member Sandy Eames, who has volunteered on the museum’s ships for more than 10 years. The group, Eames said, is particularly interested in seeing the the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs’ plans to restore the Wavertree sailing ship.
“One of the key problems in the past is the programs on our ships have not been effectively marketed,” said Eames. “Most maritime folks agree that the best way to keep historic ships alive is to keep them working.”
The City Museum declined to comment on the meeting.
Forming an alliance with the City Museum is a tactful move only if the Seaport Museum’s current leaders — President and Chief Executive Officer Mary Pelzer and Chairman Frank Sciame — are replaced, according to “Save Our Seaport” member Peter Stanford, the museum’s founder and former president. The group, Stanford said, is contemplating forming an independent organization that would assist in the museum’s operations and demand government-run commissions and hearings.
“We’re very open indeed to how [the City Museum] or any other responsible group are willing to take on the leadership at South Street,” said Stanford. “But we can’t look for any full revitalization of South Street with a management that offends rather than seeks cooperation and interaction with the community.”
The city’s recent financing of the museum to keep it from shuttering completely, Stanford added, won’t solve the institution’s long-term problems.
“We’re just inviting another shipwreck. This is deeply wrong… until we get [former trustees] back or find some brand new people, the museum won’t work,” said Stanford.
When asked about possible solutions for the Seaport Museum at a recent press conference, Mayor Michael Bloomberg drew a blank, resorting to general statements about public-versus-private fundraising.
While the city is advising “small” museums on how to successfully raise funds, “the government can help some museums but can’t help them all,” said Bloomberg. “The federal government keeps cutting back on a lot of support… it’s really the private sector that has to come through for museums.”
The Seaport Museum, Bloomberg continued, “does have some interesting [features] — it’s got a good location, but it [still] hasn’t seemed to catch on recently.”
Seth Pinsky, president of the Economic Development Corporation, said the city has been “actively engaged with the Board of the South Street Seaport Museum, working with them to try to get their financial house in order.”
Pinsky continued, “It’s a very challenging situation. We’re talking both to them as well as to potential outside entities that might be able to assist them.” The city, he said, hopes to have more information to share with the public in the coming weeks.
Despite the museum’s tribulations, Stanford and others are holding out hope that the Seaport museum can resuscitate itself.
“I think the museum, if it adopts its open policies within a year-and-a-half, would begin to see multimillion dollar gifts coming in from the communities that it once served and can serve again,” said Stanford.
