Waterfront Museum

The Waterfront Museum was founded in 1986 to provide programs in education and culture aboard an historic vessel and to advocate for and expand public waterfront access in the NY Metropolitan area. The Museum relocated to Red Hook, Brooklyn in 1994 as a permanent homeport after operating in Liberty State Park in Jersey City & Hoboken, NJ; Piermont, NY; and South Street Seaport, NYC. Coming to Red Hook in 1994, an ambitious group of volunteers transformed a former dumping area into what has been cited by the Neighborhood Open Space Coalition as "an ideal example of open space and waterfront access which provides an excellent complement to waterfront development". The Museum's permanent collection includes a nearly one-century old wooden barge, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.    Lehigh Valley Barge # 79 built in 1914 is the last example of a wooden barge still floating in New York Harbor.