SOUTH STREET SEAPORT — The South Street Seaport Museum is open to the public once again.
Nearly a year after financial struggles forced the maritime museum to lay off most its staff and close its doors, the Seaport Museum re-launched Thursday with new leaders at the helm and 16 galleries of exhibits.
"We're thrilled," said Susan Henshaw Jones, director of the Museum of the City of New York, which is running the South Street Seaport Museum on an interim basis. "We're very much determined to make this work."
Jones' staff has transformed the Seaport Museum's historic Fulton Street buildings into a series of sleek displays showcasing everything from ships in bottles to panoramic photos of Times Square, while at the same time allowing the public to see glimpses of the crumbling old hotel rooms that once filled the space.
The exhibits leap across time from the Seaport's history as New York's financial center to present-day issues like urban manufacturing and Occupy Wall Street.
"The Seaport is not a story of olden times — it is the lifeblood that created the city we live in now," said Sarah Henry, chief curator of the Museum of the City of New York who is now also working for the Seaport Museum.
Henry pulled many pieces from the Seaport Museum's extensive collection, including an armada of ship models and an arresting display of hundreds of tools used for everything from carving wooden figureheads to sawing ice blocks to ship to the tropics.
Henry also borrowed some pieces from the Museum of the City of New York, including the popular "Mannahatta" exhibit, which shows how the island looked when Henry Hudson sailed to it more than 400 years ago.
Three of the galleries house a "Made in New York" exhibit, with contemporary furniture and garments that were designed and manufactured in the city — a reminder that New York's heritage as a creative center is still alive today, Henry said.
The museum will begin to rotate the exhibits in the late spring and is also working on a schedule of lectures and other public programs, Henry said. The museum already offers classes for school groups and a toddler-friendly "Mini Mates" program.
The Seaport Museum's historic ships are currently closed for winter maintenance but will begin to open in the spring.
While the Museum of the City of New York remains in charge of the Seaport Museum, visitors to either museum will receive free admission to the other within a week of their visit, Henry said.
The South Street Seaport Museum, 12 Fulton St., is open Wednesday to Sunday, 10 to 6 p.m. Admission is $5, and children under 9 are free.
