SOUTH STREET SEAPORT — A new board of directors has taken over at the South Street Seaport Museum, in an effort to bail out the financially floundering institution.
The seven new board members include Downtown arts and real estate leaders, along with three trustees from the Museum of the City of New York, which took over the South Street Seaport Museum on an interim basis earlier this fall.
The chairman of the new board is Robert G.M. Keating, vice president of strategic initiatives at Pace University and vice chairman of the Mayor's Advisory Committee on the Judiciary.
"It's going to be a fascinating, difficult but rewarding project," said Keating, 70, who lives on Long Island. "It's a critical time for the museum, but it's an opportunity."
All of the museum's former trustees, including chairman Frank Sciame, have been dismissed.
"The [new board members] are being very good citizens of the city of New York, stepping up to these responsibilities," Susan Henshaw Jones, director of the Museum of the City of New York, said in a statement.
The other new board members are: Maggie Boepple, former president of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; Tracey Knuckles, general counsel at the Department of Cultural Affairs; Newton P.S. Merrill, a retired senior executive vice president at the Bank of New York who chairs the board of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Deidre O'Byrne, a real estate and tax lawyer; Martin J. McLaughlin, who owns a Downtown public relations firm; and Carl Weisbrod, former president of Trinity Real Estate.
Peter Stanford, who founded the South Street Seaport Museum in 1967 and advocated for new leadership as he watched the museum sink over the past several years, said the new board members were "solid" choices.
"I'm not hostile to the old board, but I think it's a good idea to get a really clean start," Stanford said.
Under the leadership of Jones and the new board, the museum has already launched educational programs and will reopen its galleries with a new exhibit in late January. The historic Bowne & Co. Stationers print shop, which is part of the museum, reopened earlier this fall.
The museum closed its galleries and laid off more than half of its staff in February 2011, because of financial difficulties.
McLaughlin, a new board member who also serves on the Museum of the City of New York board, said he is hopeful that Lower Manhattan's influx of residents and tourists will buoy the museum's visitorship and support.
"If there was ever going to be a time for this museum to jump up and be restored, this is it," McLaughlin said.
The new board will be in place for a trial period of one year, with an optional six-month extension. After that, the museum's future will depend on how much progress it has made in sustaining itself financially.
Harold Reed, a former Seaport Museum board member and longtime Downtown resident, said he was disappointed to no longer be part of the board, but he understands the decision.
"If that's the way the museum is going to function well, I'm all for it," Reed said. "The main thing is that the museum is thriving and healthy."
