The South Street Seaport Museum, tucked in amid the high-end clothing chains, offers more that meets the eye: galleries, maritime crafts, shipboard events, letterpress workshops, walking tours, and children's programming such November 1st's "Pirate Hallowe'en".It also offers tugboat rides.
Public tours aboard the historic W.O. Decker (limit 12 passengers) leave from the Seaport daily. Tickets are $20 per person before 6:00 p.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. (Weekend and evening tours are more expensive.)
Or sail New York Harbor aboard the schooner Pioneer. The cost is $25 per person on weekdays before 6:00 p.m.
Both the W.O. Decker and the Pioneer are available for private charter at (212) 748-8786.
The South Street Seaport Museum publishes a quarterly schedule of events called "Broadside", available from the museum at 12 Fulton Street (212) 748-8786 www.southstreetseaportmuseum.org.
You can also pick up a copy at Bowne and Co. at 211 Water Street, the historic letterpress, part of the museum, that prints the schedule.
Bowne and Co., which features a collection of old letterpress machines and a proprietor who knows and loves them all, is one of my favorite spots in downtown Manhattan.
The print trade in New York was once centered around the Seaport neighborhood. Herman Melville's masterpiece, Moby Dick, was typeset in a drab brick building that still stands on Fulton Street. The first edition of Moby Dick was printed nearby.
