Water line on the front door.

The museum received approximately 3 feet of water on the main level and several inches on the Green Room/East Gallery level. There was significant damage to the Gift Shop and merchandise. Everything was elevated at least two feet off of the floor, using the Hurricane Irene flood level of 10 inches as a guide, but clearly this was not enough and about half of the remaining gift shop inventory was destroyed.

Unlike Irene, the flood waters thankfully did not contain significant amounts of mud or other contaminants, or we would be dealing with a much bigger mess.

Thankfully, no artifacts were significantly harmed, despite getting some water in the East Gallery for the first time in 28 years, according to Curator Allynne Lange. Two computers in the Changing River exhibit were damaged by the water. No archival materials were harmed by the flooding as most are secure on the second floor of the museum.

The Kingston Home Port and Education Center (a.k.a. “Boat Barn”) also suffered minimal damage. Designed to withstand flooding with an elevated concrete floor and three foot high concrete knee wall, the Boat Barn simply needed some hosing out. Unfortunately, some of the construction materials in the yard were damaged by flooding, including at least one of the custom-made wooden doors. Construction on the barn is continuing this week.

Of the five vessels that docked with the museum for the duration of the storm, none sustained any damage, though the Justice (pictured above) did receive a bit of a surprise when the floodwaters receded with the tide, leaving the floating dock stuck up on a bulkhead pylon. The dock was pushed back into the water at the next high tide.

Waters receding from the museum gift shop, leaving havoc in their wake.

HRMM’s Gift Shop, bathrooms, and newly installed carpeting have suffered significant damage from flooding. Our flood insurance coverage has a large deductible. Please help us cope with this significant cost by considering a monetary donation to the museum. Every little bit counts! Any donations over our clean-up costs will be put toward plans to mitigate flooding in the future, including protection of collections in the East Gallery.

Donate now.

To see more pictures from Hurricane Sandy damage, follow us on Facebook!

Hudson River Day starts tomorrow (Saturday, July 21st) at HRMM and grounds open at 11 am for a fun-filled day celebrating the Hudson River.

Official ground-breaking ceremony for the Kingston Home Port and Education Center begins at 12:30 PM. Discount admission to the museum all day. Visiting historic vessels, children’s activities, vendors, food, and live music ongoing throughout the day.

For more information and a complete schedule, please click here.

See you tomorrow!

Students of all ages are invited to submit two-dimensional artworks (8.5″x11″ up to 12″x18″) for display along the historic steam tug Mathilda during River Day on Saturday, July 21st.

This year’s theme is “Animals Aboard!” celebrating maritime pets such as sea dogs and water rescue dogs, ships’ cats, fishing birds, etc.

Deadline for submissions is Saturday, July 17th. Award-winners will be notified in advance. Prizes and awards must be picked up at the museum.

Submissions can be mailed to:

Hudson River Maritime Museum
50 Rondout Landing
Kingston, NY 12401

Or delivered in person during regular museum hours, 11 am to 5 pm, daily.

For entry rules and guidelines and submission categories, please click here.

YNN reported the grant on air featuring a terrific video of repairs being made to the sloop. Click here to view.

The Wall Street Journal Click here to view.

News 10 ABC, Capitol Region Click here to view.

The Republic Click here to view.

WCAX Click here to view.

NJ Herald Click here to view.

Syracuse.com Click here to view.

New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation has awarded a $400,000 grant to help cover the cost of Hudson River Sloop Clearwater and Hudson River Maritime Museum’s joint project for the Kingston Home Port and Education Center to be built on the Rondout Creek. Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the grants in December as part of a new economic development initiative that adds up to $67 million for 61 Mid-Hudson Valley projects.

The grant will be matched with money through a joint fundraising effort of the two organizations, through private donations, and a $125,000 grant secured by state Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, D-Kingston. Architectural services and $200,000 worth of timber are being donated by Allan Shope, Clearwater board president.

The 4,500-square-foot, two story timber frame boatbuilding barn will be constructed on the west end of the Hudson River Maritime Museum property.  The facility will offer environmental education programming, public green infrastructure trainings, community boat building, maritime history lectures, and exhibitions. The new Home Port facility will also play a key role in enhancing the environment, quality of life, and support economic vitality of the Kingston community by creating a draw for Hudson Valley tourism and attracting visitors to the Kingston waterfront.

“We are grateful to New York State (Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation),” said Jeff Rumpf, Clearwater’s executive director, “We are very excited about the new Home Port in Kingston; not only will it provide a permanent winter home for the sloop, Clearwater, something she has never had in her 40 years on the Hudson, it will also serve as headquarters for Hudson Valley Green Infrastructure, Green Cities, and position our water economy to grow!”

“The structure will be built by local craftsmen using mainly local materials and we are planning a barn-raising event for the fall.  This building really looks toward the future— and it’s designed to withstand the periodic floods that affect the Rondout,” said John C. Weeks, Hudson River Maritime Museum board member and chair for the Barn Building Committee. “Both organizations are grateful to the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and to Assemblyman Cahill for making this wonderful project possible. It will benefit all New Yorkers lucky enough to visit the site, but it will especially benefit the people of the Hudson Valley.”

“The partnership between Clearwater and the Hudson River Maritime Museum is going to make a big difference on the Kingston waterfront,” said Kate Mitchell, Hudson River Maritime Museum’s executive director, “This project gives us the opportunity to better serve the local community. In addition, we’ve got plans to make this a year-round destination, to draw people in for the cultural and heritage experience they can have here summer or winter. This is just the beginning of really good things.”

The Kingston city Planning Board voted unanimously in December for the building proposal. An old fashioned barn-raising involving community members is planned for Fall 2012. Click here to learn more about the Kingston Home Port.

For more information about Clearwater’s OPRHP grant award, please contact Eileen Newman, Grants and Major Gifts Coordinator, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, by Email, or call 845-265-8080, ext.7160.

About the Kingston Home Port Project
Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc., and the Hudson River Maritime Museum have entered into a partnership to provide the sloop Clearwater with a winter port for critical winter maintenance and restoration, to build an upriver environmental education center, and to advance the burgeoning tourism industry in the Hudson Valley region.

The Kingston Home Port will allow better upriver access for Clearwater programming, in addition to acting as a woodshop for the sloop Clearwater as she winters for 6 months out of the year and undergoes critical maintenance and repairs.

The facility will also allow both organizations to increase programming capacity, offering the public environmental education programming and hands-on demonstrations of the maritime history instruction and boat building, community-based special events, and green infrastructure training initiatives for river communities. Additionally, the facility will provide the local rowing club and the Kingston High School Rowing Team much needed storage space.

By bringing New York State history to life through boat building workshops and weaving together elements of Kingston’s maritime, industrial, and cultural history, the project is line with the Hudson River Valley’s Heritage Area Management Plan’s mission “to recognize, preserve, protect, and interpret the nationally significant cultural and natural resources of the Hudson River Valley for the benefit of the nation.”  This highly visible and accessible venue will make the creek a year round destination support the continued successful economic redevelopment of this historic waterfront, known as a venue for community festivals, concerts, and large scale events, such as “River Day” and “Burning of Kingston”.

Perhaps most importantly, the project will spur renewed interest in the sustainable and proper redevelopment of the site and will ideally become part of a larger park system, encompassing the entire Lower Tidal Portion of the Rondout Creek and Kingston Bay.

To combine Clearwater’s youth-oriented programming and its sloop with Hudson River Maritime Museum’s artifact-rich resources creates a partnership that will celebrate the history of the Hudson Valley and provide vibrant and exciting programs for people of all ages, but particularly for the people who live and work in New York State.

About Clearwater
Clearwater’s mission is to preserve and protect the Hudson River, its tributaries and related bodies of water. Clearwater conducts innovative environmental programs, advocacy and celebrations in order to inspire and energize the next generation of environmental leaders. Clearwater’s concerts, sloop education programs and environmental advocacy programs have inspired, educated and activated millions of people for over 40 years. Founded in 1969 by music legend and environmental activist Pete Seeger, the organization began with the launch of sloop Clearwater—a majestic replica of the sloops that sailed the Hudson in the 18th and 19th centuries. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the 106-foot-long tall ship is among the first vessels in the U.S. to conduct science-based environmental education aboard a sailing ship, creating the template by which environmental education programs are conducted around the world today. Since the launch of Clearwater, America’s Environmental Flagship, more than half a million young people and hundreds of thousands of adults have experienced their first real look at an estuary’s ecosystem aboard the sloop.

Inside the Hudson River Maritime Museum

Visiting a museum is something that becomes a habit. Each time you go into the galleries, you see something that you hadn’t seen or known before; it’s similar to reading a classic book again or listening to a favorite symphony over and over. The nuances or certain finer particularities become more evident the more often one partakes in the experience; it’s like reuniting with old friends.

The exhibits in the West Gallery of the Hudson River Maritime Museum change every year so that those who visit can continue to learn from, and enjoy, selections from the permanent collections of the museum. This past year the exhibit was “The Face of Work in the Hudson Valley,” presenting about 150 years of the history and philosophical concept of work in this region. These historical references were displayed through photographs, archival film, artifacts and ephemera from the museum’s permanent collection as well as items loaned from local collectors. Since this high-quality exhibit was met with such enthusiasm, the decision has been made to make some interesting and slight modifications, and continue the dialogue on what it means to work and have a job in this region. “The Face of Work in the Hudson Valley – Part Two” will open Saturday, May 5, 2012.

Over the years, the Hudson River Maritime Museum has continued to mount exhibits which reflect the mission of the institution. Other recent popular exhibits have been: “Steam on the River: Hudson River Steamboat Paintings,” and the “Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909” which was mounted on the occasion of the Quadricentennial celebration. Earlier exhibits included, “Fire and Ice: The Brick and Ice Industries in the Hudson River,” “Rowing on the River,” “Thomas Cornell and the Cornell Steamboat Company,” “Cargoes and Carriers,” and “Boatbuilding on the Hudson.”

In the museum’s large East Gallery are ongoing exhibits on the steamboat Mary Powell, Hudson River Day Line, Hudson River Ferries, Iceboats, Tugboats, Ice Harvesting, the Brick Industry, the Rondout Lighthouse, and The Changing River which displays two live specimen tanks with turtles and small fish.

The image below shows the inviting “Ferry Entrance” gallery which allows museum visitors to enter and experience “waiting” for the next ferry scheduled to cross the river. Visitors of all ages find this a fun activity. And watching – and counting – the six rotations on the lighthouse model indicate that one is surely at the mouth of the Rondout Creek. Making a brick rubbing to take home is another experience one can savor.

East Gallery Ferry Exhibit

Join us in 2012 for these and more engaging experiences. We’re always changing, and we look forward to greeting you at the Maritime Museum.

Reprinted with permission from Kingston Times / Ulster Publishing

Saturday, December 3
12:00 noon – 2:00 pm
Hudson River Maritime Museum Gift Shop

A special book signing and discussion with local Hudson Valley author Joanne Michaels on the occasion of her new publication “Hudson River Towns – Highlights from the Capital Region to Sleepy Hollow Country”. Receive a FREE gift with every purchase of this book!

Admission: Bring children-sized new mittens, gloves, winter scarves or warm hats to donate to the annual “Mitten Tree” or “pay what you wish”!

Hudson River Maritime Museum
50 Rondout Landing
Kingston, NY 12401
(845) 338-0071 ext. 15

Athens Shipyard Crew

“The Face of Work in the Hudson Valley” exhibition has been extended until Sunday, November 13. The Museum will continue being open daily from 11:00 am – 5:00 pm. This exhibition spans approximately 150 years of prints, photographs, artifacts and vintage film — telling the story of how work has dominated the lives of those along the Hudson River since the earliest settlement days.

“Explorers, trappers, traders, farmers, quarrymen, boat builders, brick workers, factory workers, shippers, boat captains and crew, all have left their mark as they did what was needed to earn a living.”

Among the photographs and artifacts on display, you’ll see images of “Athens boatbuilders” from c. 1880; “Brickyard workers at the Cordts Brickyard in Kingston” also from c. 1880; and a “D&H canal boat crewed by a family who lived on the boat as it made its way from the coal fields of Pennsylvania to the Hudson River at Rondout”.

Did you know that in the 19th century, over a dozen ferries connected the opposite shores of the Hudson River, from New York City to Albany? Another interesting fact was that over 500 million bricks a year were produced in the Hudson Valley.

Remember to visit the Anton Otto Fischer exhibit at the Friends of Historic Kingston Gallery, located at the corner of Wall and Main Streets, before October 30. Eighteen of these stunning seascapes by this noted marine artist and illustrator are on loan from the Hudson River Maritime Museum’s permanent collection. Admission is free and the FHK Gallery is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 1:00 – 4:00 pm. 845.339.0720

Lighthouse tours for both the Rondout and Esopus-Meadows lighthouses have been completed for the season.

Thursday, October 20 – 12:00 noon
Cruise ship American Glory (length – 166’) departs from HRMM docks.

Thursday, October 20 – 2:00 pm
Cruise ship American Star (length – 205’) arrives at HRMM docks.

Friday, October 21 – 5:00 am
Cruise ship American Star departs from HRMM docks.

Saturday, October 22 – 9:00 am
“Fall Clean Up” Day for HRMM’s courtyard mascot – the 1898 steam tug Mathilda
Bring your friends, dust masks, gloves, some basic tools and be prepared to work! What a productive way to spend an October Saturday morning along the historic Rondout waterfront at the Maritime Museum.
Coffee and bagels will be provided.
RSVP: hrmm@hvc.rr.com or call 845.338.0071

Sunday, October 23 – 12:00 noon
Cruise ship Grande Mariner (length – 184’) arrives at HRMM docks.

Monday, October 24 – 2:00 am
Cruise ship Grande Mariner departs from HRMM docks.

Monday, October 24 – 6:00 pm
Cruise ship American Star (length – 205’) arrives at HRMM docks.

Tuesday, October 25 – 12:00 noon
Cruise ship American Star departs from HRMM docks.

Tuesday, October 25 – 7:00 pm
Cruise ship American Glory (length – 166’) arrives at HRMM docks.

Wednesday, October 26 – 8:00 am
Cruise ship Independence (length – 210’) arrives at HRMM docks.

Wednesday, October 26 – 12:00 noon
Cruise ship Independence departs from HRMM docks.

Wednesday, October 26 – 5:00 pm
Cruise ship American Glory departs from HRMM docks.