Visit
The Hudson River Maritime Museum is closed to the public for the month of December, 2020. We will reopen in January, 2021 by appointment only. The Wooden Boat School will be open for registered students only.
All visitors must wear masks inside the museum building and adhere to social distancing whenever possible. If visitors do not have masks, masks will be provided by the museum. The museum will also operate with a unidirectional entrance and separate exit. All hands-on activities, touch screens, and interactive displays will be closed for everyone’s safety. Bathrooms will be open and hand sanitizer stations available.
Wondering about the weather? Hudson Valley Weather has accurate, up-do-date, local weather for the entire Hudson Valley.
All visitors must wear masks inside the museum building and adhere to social distancing whenever possible. If visitors do not have masks, masks will be provided by the museum. The museum will also operate with a unidirectional entrance and separate exit. All hands-on activities, touch screens, and interactive displays will be closed for everyone’s safety. Bathrooms will be open and hand sanitizer stations available.
Wondering about the weather? Hudson Valley Weather has accurate, up-do-date, local weather for the entire Hudson Valley.
Admission
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Adults: $9.00
Seniors (62+): $6.00 Children (18 & under): $6.00 Family Rate (2 adults & children under 18): $25.00 Children 4 years & younger: FREE Active Duty Military w/ID: FREE HRMM Members: FREE CAMM Members: FREE |
The Museum offers discount admission days on special holidays. Discount admission is $2 off each admission level or $5 off the Family Rate. Check our calendar for special discount days.
The museum is self-guided. If you would like a guided tour, please visit our Group Tour and Education pages. |
Access
The Hudson River Maritime Museum is handicap-accessible. The museum gift shop and West Gallery may be accessed via ramp on the street side of the building. In order to visit the East Gallery and Green Room, guests must exit the building through the gift shop and continue up the ramp to the back entrance. A staff member or volunteer will be happy to meet you at that door. Those walking with a cane or walker may also want to consider this route as there is a short flight of three steps from the West Gallery to the hallway that accesses the rest of the museum.
Directions
NYS Thruway (I-87) Take Exit 19. At traffic circle take the third exit for Route 587 South to the traffic light. Go straight for Route 32/Broadway South (straight). Keep going straight to stay on Broadway. You will enter a residential area and go down a hill. Broadway takes a sharp left turn at a traffic light to go down to the Rondout District. Follow Broadway to the bottom of the hill. Bear left. The museum will be on your right.
Route 9W from the South (Poughkeepsie, New Paltz, Mid-Hudson Bridge) Cross bridge over Rondout Creek from Port Ewen. At the bottom of the hill turn left at the traffic light onto Garraghan Drive. At the next traffic light (Broadway) turn left, follow to the bottom of the hill. Bear left. The museum will be on your right.
Route 9W from the North (Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge) Take the first exit after the bridge. Turn left at the end of the ramp onto Rt. 32, following Rt. 32 South until it intersects with Rt. 9W (traffic lights). Turn left onto Rt. 9W South, following to the second traffic light. Turn right onto Garraghan Drive at the traffic light. At the next traffic light (Broadway) turn left, follow to the bottom of the hill. Bear left. The museum will be on your right.
Look for the grey and dark green Kingston Home Port and Education Center and the 1898 black and red steam tug Mathilda dry-docked within the museum courtyard along the Rondout Creek. The museum is the two story brick building adjacent to the courtyard and the entrance is through the museum gift shop on the street side of the building.
Look for the grey and dark green Kingston Home Port and Education Center and the 1898 black and red steam tug Mathilda dry-docked within the museum courtyard along the Rondout Creek. The museum is the two story brick building adjacent to the courtyard and the entrance is through the museum gift shop on the street side of the building.
Parking
Free parking is available in the municipal parking lot across the street or you may use the metered street parking in front of the museum. Metered parking is free after 6 pm and on Sundays.
Historic Rondout Waterfront District
The Hudson River Maritime Museum is located on the Rondout Creek in the Rondout area of the city of Kingston, New York. Rondout was formerly a village separate from Kingston and the most important port between New York and Albany in the 19th century during the heyday of the Delaware & Hudson Canal from 1828 to 1898. Coal was brought to Rondout from Honesdale, Pennsylvania 108 miles over the D&H Canal. The coal was transferred at Island Dock on Rondout Creek into larger boats and towed down the Hudson to New York City and other ports. Coal was the fuel of choice in the steam era of the 19th century, powering everything from factories to steamboats.
Many immigrants flooded into Rondout after the opening of the D. & H. Canal to work on the canal, the coal depot, the boats, and in supporting industries. The immigrants, mostly German and Irish, quickly set up a busy community with homes, churches, schools and businesses of many kinds. Among the supporting industries was the Cornell Steamboat Company, consisting of up to 62 tugboats at one time. This large fleet towed barges of coal and many other materials on the Hudson River to New York and other ports. Eventually Cornell had a virtual monopoly of towing on the Hudson River and employed hundreds of workers on their boats and in their workshops along the Rondout Creek.
Hudson River passenger steamboats docked at Rondout and some, like the famous Mary Powell, the Queen of the Hudson, called Rondout their home. A ferry crossed the Rondout to Sleightsburg, and another left Rondout to cross the Hudson to Rhinecliff.
Prosperity continued in the Rondout area through the 1920s, but began to decline in the Depression of the 1930s. Boatbuilding of naval vessels for World War II greatly revived the Rondout area in the 1940s as three shipyards operated with large work crews.
The real decline set in during the 1950s with industries closing and businesses moving elsewhere. During the late 1960s the rundown waterfront area of Rondout was subject to the destruction of an Urban Renewal project leaving a mostly empty neighborhood.
Around 1980 a renaissance began with new businesses, including the Hudson River Maritime Museum, coming to Rondout. Slowly new homes were built in historic style and the neighborhood revitalized.
Today that renaissance continues and visitors, many on boats, come to enjoy the waterfront of our historic neighborhood. We hope you will enjoy your visit to our picturesque waterfront.
Many immigrants flooded into Rondout after the opening of the D. & H. Canal to work on the canal, the coal depot, the boats, and in supporting industries. The immigrants, mostly German and Irish, quickly set up a busy community with homes, churches, schools and businesses of many kinds. Among the supporting industries was the Cornell Steamboat Company, consisting of up to 62 tugboats at one time. This large fleet towed barges of coal and many other materials on the Hudson River to New York and other ports. Eventually Cornell had a virtual monopoly of towing on the Hudson River and employed hundreds of workers on their boats and in their workshops along the Rondout Creek.
Hudson River passenger steamboats docked at Rondout and some, like the famous Mary Powell, the Queen of the Hudson, called Rondout their home. A ferry crossed the Rondout to Sleightsburg, and another left Rondout to cross the Hudson to Rhinecliff.
Prosperity continued in the Rondout area through the 1920s, but began to decline in the Depression of the 1930s. Boatbuilding of naval vessels for World War II greatly revived the Rondout area in the 1940s as three shipyards operated with large work crews.
The real decline set in during the 1950s with industries closing and businesses moving elsewhere. During the late 1960s the rundown waterfront area of Rondout was subject to the destruction of an Urban Renewal project leaving a mostly empty neighborhood.
Around 1980 a renaissance began with new businesses, including the Hudson River Maritime Museum, coming to Rondout. Slowly new homes were built in historic style and the neighborhood revitalized.
Today that renaissance continues and visitors, many on boats, come to enjoy the waterfront of our historic neighborhood. We hope you will enjoy your visit to our picturesque waterfront.