The South Street Seaport Museum’s collection of ocean liner models and memorabilia evokes a time when swift and elegant ocean liners were the first and last words in fashionable and luxurious travel accommodations.  Traveling by ocean liner was an experience apart from arriving at your ultimate destination.  

   The extensive collection ranges from scale models of ships like the Titanic and United States to posters, cigarette cards, hat bands, commemorative medals, tea sets and china and menus.  The Museum’s model of the Queen Mary, now on display in the Walter Lord Gallery, once graced the lobby of Cunard Line’s main headquarters in New York City.

   In 2003, the Museum acquired the collection, of the now closed Ocean Liner Museum - making the Museum the largest repository for Ocean Liner Memorabilia in the world.

Ocean Liner Cutaways
Through August 2009
Schermerhorn Row Galleries

In the era of the great transatlantic ocean liners, before the dawn of the internet, television, or in some cases even radio, ship operators such as Cunard and the White Star Line advertised their ships with cutaways.  In these images, sections of the ship would be “cut away” to show a cross-section of the vessel.  In this way, potential passengers could examine the accommodations on board. In this exhibit, cutaways from the South Street Seaport Museum collection are on view for the first time, giving visitors a glimpse of the luxury of ocean liners as well as a taste of advertisement in a bygone era.