South Street Seaport Museum, Maritime museum in Manhattan, New York
The South Street Seaport Museum is a maritime museum at Pier 16 in the Seaport District of Lower Manhattan, New York. The site brings together historic ships moored at the pier, exhibition galleries, a working print shop, and a cluster of early 19th-century warehouse buildings on cobblestone streets.
The area around the museum was New York's main commercial waterfront in the early 1800s, when ships from around the world docked here to unload goods and passengers. The museum was founded in the 1960s to save the old ships and warehouses from demolition as the neighborhood changed.
Bowne & Co., the museum's working letterpress shop, lets visitors watch printing being done on historic presses and sometimes try it themselves. The shop sells handmade paper goods that reflect the area's old trade connections.
The museum is open Wednesday through Sunday, and weekdays tend to be less crowded than weekends. The ships are accessible directly from the pier, which also offers open views toward the Brooklyn Bridge.
The lightship Ambrose, built in 1908, once floated at the entrance to New York Harbor to guide ships in, and visitors can walk through it today. For many immigrants arriving by sea, it was the first vessel they saw before reaching American shores.
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