South Street Seaport Museum gets half million dollars anonymously

Susan Henshaw Jones, president of the South Street Seaport Museum, in Bowne & Co. Stationers, one of the museum’s outposts on Water Street. (Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)

BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER | New York is a city where anything can happen, and it does. This week, Susan Henshaw Jones, Ronay Menschel director of the Museum of the City of New York and president of the South Street Seaport Museum, received a letter enclosing a check for half a million dollars to help restore the South Street Seaport Museum, severely damaged by Superstorm Sandy.

The check came from an anonymous donor as a Fidelity Charitable grant. A note with the check explained that Fidelity Charitable is the brand name of the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, an independent public charity with a donor-endorsed fund program.

Jeff Simmons, a spokesperson for the museum, said that Henshaw Jones was greatly moved by the gift. She was also moved by a child who donated $10 from his piggy bank. “I am so grateful to everyone who responded to our very real needs,” she said. “Their generosity affirms that New Yorkers want the Seaport Museum to survive.”

Another large gift arrived this past week from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which gave the museum a $100,000 grant.

Thus far, the South Street Seaport Museum has collected more than $750,000 in cash and pledges to repair the destruction wrought by Sandy. Henshaw Jones estimates that it will take $22 million to replace the electrical wiring, elevators, escalators, telecommunications, air conditioning and heating equipment destroyed in the storm.

Post-Sandy support for the museum has come from around 500 donors including corporations, foundations and individuals. The museum is still seeking contributions to fully restore and replace all of its damaged equipment. Donations can be made on the South Street Seaport Museum’s website at www.southstreetseaportmuseum.org.

In addition, the museum has applied to FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) for a grant, but when it will come through and in what amount is uncertain.

After having to cancel a planned reopening scheduled for Dec. 14 because the jury-rigged electrical system failed, the museum did reopen on Dec. 19 – without elevators or escalators and with a makeshift heating system. A formal reopening with a celebratory party will take place in early January.

The museum has two new exhibits — A Fisherman’s Dream: Folk Art by Mario Sanchez and Street Shots/NYC, a presentation of contemporary New York City street photography. They joined ongoing special exhibitions Compass: Folk Art in Four Directions, organized by the American Folk Art Museum, and Romancing New York: Watercolors by Frederick Brosen.

Woodcarver Sal Polisi has a shop on Water Street in the South Street Seaport. (Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)

On cobblestoned Water Street just around the corner from the museum’s main building at 12 Fulton St., several outposts of the museum are also open — Bowne & Co. Stationers and Bowne Printers, a custom print shop that prints letterhead, business cards, posters and other materials on 19th-century presses using the museum’s extensive collection of antique type. Next to them is the Maritime Craft Center where woodcarver Sal Polisi plies his trade.

The museum’s historic ships survived Superstorm Sandy intact, but none of them is currently open to the public. The lightship Ambrose is expected to reopen soon.

The South Street Seaport Museum at 12 Fulton St. is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is $10 and free for children under 9 and for members of either the South Street Seaport Museum or the Museum of the City of New York.

When Superstorm Sandy flooded the South Street Seaport Museum on Oct. 29, 2012, the destruction occurred on the lower floors. The galleries on the upper floors were not harmed. The museum reopened on Dec. 19, with two new exhibits and two continuing exhibits, including “Compass: Folk Art in Four Directions.” (Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)