Seaport Museum Rededicates Historic A.A. Thomson & Co Warehouse, Huge Exhibition to Follow

“Ship ahoy! Have ye seen the Seaport Museum?”

Whatever one’s answer of this exclamation, adapted from Moby Dick, all New Yorkers will want to see it again, following the October 30 rededication of the A.A. Thomson & Co. warehouse at 213-215 Water Street.

The invitation-only event was convened to celebrate the historic 1868 edifice which, after substantial renovation, will become a transformative exhibition space for the complex of Seaport Museum locations which sprawl across the South Street Seaport Historic District.

Joining the museum’s Board of Trustees, staff, donors and other supporters at the rededication were New York State Senator Brian Kavanaugh; indefatigable downtown history booster, Councilmember and former Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer.

The first exhibition at the A.A. Thomson building, opening in March 2025, is titled “Maritime City,” and will include 525 objects from the Museum’s collection of over 80,000 works of art, artifacts and archival records.

The excitement this instills in urban history lovers can scarcely be contained in the two dimensions of print.

Integral as it is to New York City history, the people’s relation to the working waterfront diminished since the 2005 relocation of the Fulton Fish Market to Hunt’s Point in the Bronx.

While the 2011 return of East River ferry service, and its subsequent expansion has helped renew interest in the Seaport area, the densely layered richness of its history has remained more elusive than it should need.

This is by no means the Museum’s fault. Its current small exhibition space at 12 Fulton Street is admirable for what it is. Likewise the institution’s resourceful use of Pier 16, and the historic vessels docked there, including the tall ship Wavertree, the schooner Pioneer, the tugboat W.O. Decker, and the permanently moored lightship Ambrose.

Nonetheless, the opening of the A.A. Thomson & Co. building will be transformative, providing the museum with a venue commensurate with its locale. For a cinematic glimpse of what was, the classic 1949 Anthony Mann directed crime movie, “Side Steet” features location shots so astonishing, many New Yorkers today might think they were staged. (Though largely shot in a studio, director Sam Fuller’s 1953 espionage noir, Pickup on South Street, nonetheless captures the feel of the place and era with unflinching intensity.)

According to the Seaport Museum, the Maritime City exhibition “tells how, for four centuries, the port of New York has connected people to the world through the exchange of goods, ideas, languages, and cultures. By sharing the material culture of New York City and its people, the objects on display highlight stories of the working class people employed by ships, shipping lines, and other local industries throughout history, as well as the emigrant workers and immigrant families that came through the port as their first stop in America.”

For those wishing to prepare themselves for this show, Mike Wallace and Edward Burroughs 1999 Pulitzer Prize winning history, Gotham—which is among the books for sale at the Seaport’s gift shop—tells all these stories and more in precise and gripping detail.

Presently there are two ongoing exhibitions at Fulton Street, both of which are recommended: “Millions: Migrants and Millionaires Aboard the Great Liners” and “South Street and the Rise of New York.”