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South Street Seaport Museum To Display First Exhibit Since Hurricane Sandy

By Irene Plagianos | February 18, 2016 6:42pm
 The South Street Seaport Museum will show its first exhibit since before Hurricane Sandy.
The South Street Seaport Museum will show its first exhibit since before Hurricane Sandy.
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DNAinfo/Julie Shapiro

SOUTH STREET SEAPORT — More than three years after Hurricane Sandy's corrosive flood waters inundated the South Street Seaport Museum, destroying its escalators and elevators, along with heating, electrical and air-conditioning systems — its historic Fulton Street building is readying for its first exhibit since 2012.

The exhibition, “Street of Ships: The Port and Its People,” will display portions of the museum's permanent collection related to the area's history as one of the world's busiest ports at one point, the New York Times reported.

“Sandy was a body blow,” Jonathan Boulware, the museum’s executive director, told the Times. “This is really an important step forward.”

The display, slated to launch March 16, will take up space in its ground floor at 12 Fulton St., as the rest of the museum is still under repair.

In August, the museum secured $10.4 million in federal funds through FEMA for needed repairs. Boulware has previously said that the museum needed more than $20 million to be fully functional.

The museum' s collection, on upper floors, was unharmed, but without the necessary systems overhaul, the museum has been unable to reopen those galleries.

The museum’s other location, Bowne & Co. Stationers, a recreation of a working 19th-century printing shop at 209 Water St. — which also sustained hurricane damage — was able to reopen.