Welcome Aboard
2024-01-01 - 2027-01-01 | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
We will announce upcoming events shortly In the meantime, we remain open Saturdays and Thursdays.
Come visit us in person.

Boat Banter on the Barge session 1
2024-02-03 14:00 - 15:00 UTC | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
A low-key conversation about boats, maritime, and ideas connected to water and waterfronts featuring Steve Mentz, professor of English at St. John’s University, ocean swimmer, and author of works of scholarship and poetry will join David Sharps, Stefan D-W, and the rest of the Waterfront Museum staff for a casual conversation about boats, maritime poetry, and whatever other topics the tide washes in on Saturday, February 3, 2024 between 2 and 3pm at the Waterfront Museum barge moored at Brooklyn’s Pier 44 (290 Conover St.). This is during the museum’s regular open hours and admission is by suggested donation (people usually leave between $2 and $20).

Boat Banter on the Barge brings experts to the Waterfront Museum’s showboat barge during the winter months for low-key conversation about boats, maritime, and ideas connected to water and waterfronts. Experts draw up a chair in the heated side of the barge during the museum’s regular open hours on Saturday afternoons, and all visitors are invited to participate in the conversation as much or as little as they like. Our guest experts come from academia, industry, and preservation. They include scholars in blue humanities, coastal studies, landscape history, and related fields as well as marine and industrial historians and archaeologists, tug and ship captains, engineers, boatwrights and more.
Steve Mentz teaches Shakespeare, early modern literature, environmental humanities, ecocritical theory, eco-poetics, and blue (or oceanic) humanities at St. John’s University. His poetry collection Sailing without Ahab comes out in April. Past works include An Introduction to the Blue Humanities (2023), Ocean (2020), Break Up the Anthropocene (2019), Shipwreck Modernity: Ecologies of Globalization, 1550-1719 (2015), and At the Bottom of Shakespeare’s Ocean (2009)
This event receives support from the Queens College MLS/MA Dual Degree in Library Science and History program.

William King's "A Man and His Barge"
2024-05-04 13:00 UTC | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
“I was drawn to Red Hook with its edgy, worn landscapes, its ubiquitous rust, and the extraordinary quality of its light. Some years ago, while taking pictures there, I came upon an old barge moored in a small inlet in the harbor.”
and so begin’s William King’s story of a Brooklyn man and his barge.
This photographic project highlights Captain David Sharps and the Waterfront Museum of Red Hook, Brooklyn. The documentary imagery focuses on Captain Sharps and his various maritime activities, operations and maintenance needed to maintain the historic vessel.
This show is on view during the museum’s regular open hours Thursdays and Saturdays, May 4 – July 25
Admission is by suggested donation (people usually leave between $2 and $20).

Swamp in the City: Cajun Music Night
2024-05-17 18:00 - 23:00 UTC
Swamp in the City
Two-step the night away to the sounds of Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole at 7pm and stay for the Daiquiri Queens in a return performance at 9pm.

Get Tickets

Batalá New York drum performance
2024-06-02 14:30 - 15:00 UTC
Free drumming performance on the barge!
Sunday, June 2nd from 2:30-3:00pm
Batalá New York is the premier all-women, Black-led, percussion ensemble, activating partnerships, community building, and cultural awareness, bringing high-energy performances to the people of New York City through an engaging blend of cultural education and joyous entertainment.
Batalá New York is one of approximately four Batalá groups that are all women and women-led. Their music, instruments and costumes are primarily from Salvador da Bahia in the northeast of Brazil.

Preposterous! - a Happenstance Clown Circus
2024-06-23 13:00 - 14:00 UTC | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
June 23, 2024 at 1pm
Sliding scale: $5-$20 per person
Advanced sales have ended. Limited seating may be available at the door.
PREPOSTEROUS! is a sophisticated, family-friendly, pocket-sized clown circus in which charming vintage clowns play circus animals, sing as a human calliope, do the classic circus mirror routine with a twist, invent a number of ridiculous “entrées”, perform live music, and execute a very satisfying slow motion number involving a pie.
“Happenstance Theater is a delightfully precise group of actor/clowns, all hell bent on making you smile. It will be a smile that goes directly to your heart. If they’re in your neighborhood, grab a friend or relative and hurry to buy a couple of tickets. You’ll be sure to have a wonderful time.” – Paul Binder, Founder, Big Apple Circus
Get your tickets here
Leslie Swan Photography
PREPOSTEROUS! premiered in the summer of 2017 at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s 50th Anniversary featuring CIRCUS ARTS and it has been performed at The National Theater as part of their Saturday Morning family series. The show is a pared down version of the award winning production IMPOSSIBLE! A Happenstance Circus about which the Washington Post said “Happenstance Theater specializes in the old skills – physical theater, clowning, mime – all served here with winking whimsy.”
Happenstance Theater is a winner of 5 Helen Hayes Awards has been called “DC’s leading peddler of whimsy” by the Washington Post. www.HappenstanceTheater.com
Featuring Mark Jaster, Sabrina Mandell, Gwen Grastorf, Sarah Olmsted Thomas and Alex Vernon.

LET THE MICE IN: THE SHADOW RING (1992–2002) reunion
2024-07-27 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
Jul 27, 2024
4 pm and 7 pm
$25, free for box set owners (with proof of purchase, RSVP to info@blankforms.org by July 13)

TICKETS at official event site
On the occasion of the monumental release of The Shadow Ring (1992–2002), the original Cat & Bells Club compatriots G. Lambkin & D. Harris will be joined by Novation Bass Station wizard and Phacto founder T. Goss for two sets of song and celebration. The three Folkestone-reared friends will reunite at the Waterfront Museum. Not performing as the Shadow Ring, the performances will summon the trio’s current sonic incarnations, featuring readings, sound arrangements, and a rare set by Call Back the Giants. Once on the water, we’ll soon learn what the fish REALLY think.
At 9 pm, join the group for an afterparty, informal Q&A, and DJ set at the San Pedro Inn.
Throughout their legendary, decade-long run, the Shadow Ring were an enigmatic force on the international musical sub-underground. Before their disbandment in 2002, this shambolic rock outfit, formed by a group of rowdy teenagers in southeast England, left behind a mighty run of eight LPs, a handful of 7″s, and a spate of raucous live shows and cryptic zine appearances on both sides of the Atlantic, all which have bolstered their enduring word-of-mouth mystique. Beginning in 2023, Blank Forms has launched a multipronged retrospective, including the first vinyl pressing of the self-released pre-Shadow Ring tape The Cat & Bells Club (1992), reissues of their first two records, and a comprehensive CD box set with a 500-page catalog. More reissues and activities are on the way.

Harboring History: Brooklyn's Transforming Waterfront
2025-05-29 19:00 - 20:30 UTC | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
How has history of the waterfront been forgotten? How have waterfront usage and access changed over time?
Join us for a screening of “Harboring History: Brooklyn’s Transforming Waterfront.”
Thursday, May 29 from 7:00-8:30pm
Tickets
This is a film about history and forgetting, maritime power and waterfront ruins, and the press of international and national forces on our waterfront in the context of replanning the Brooklyn Marine Terminal, NYC’s largest land acquisition in decades.
This 45-minute documentary interweaves the observations of seven speakers into a thoughtful reflection on the tensions between progress and history, community needs and external actors, who’s heard and not, with an undercurrent of concern about how official public planning is sometimes done.
Following the screening, we will open the room to community discussion in response to the film.
This project was created by Jori Johnson, in collaboration with PortSide NewYork, as a Capstone project in NYU’s Archives & Public History MA program.
Tickets to this screening are free, but RSVP is required. Venue capacity is 150, with seating for 100. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Into the Charmed Churned Circle
2025-05-30 20:00 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
The Indeterminacy Festival presents a preview of Into the Charmed Churned Circle,
Friday May 30, 2025 from 8pm
Tickets are $50. Purchase here.
This multi-discipline, multi-generational, immersive performance piece is created by Stanzi Vaubel and commissioned by the Snug Harbor Cultural Center. Composed by Philippe Treuille and Stanzi Vaubel, the work draws inspiration from the architectural motifs of the Newhouse Center at Snug Harbor and Herman Melville’s epic seafaring story Moby Dick. Instrumental and vocal performers hail from a consortium of ensembles including Brooklyn Youth Chorus Bass Ensemble, Grace Chorale, Brooklyn Treble Choir, New York Choir Project, and Brooklyn Conservatory Community Orchestra.

About The Indeterminacy Festival (IF)
Founded in 2016 by Stanzi Vaubel, the festival creates site-specific, large-scale works inspired by unique environments such as grain silos, warehouses, fossil parks, and most recently, the historic porches of Nolan Park on Governors Island. Set in these unusual environments, the Indeterminacy Festival is committed to creating exceptional opportunities for lifelong artists.
Forthcoming, IF has received a commission from Snug Harbor, the former home for retired sailors. The world premiere of Into the Charmed Churned Circle will take place on June 14th, 2025, in the Newhouse Center, a historic landmark building whose design evokes the spirit of a 19th century square-rigged sailing vessel. This production brings together an intergenerational ensemble of musicians and dancers to perform the work.
The Festival is a recipient of a NYSCA award for 2025, Fulbright Fellowship, New York Foundation for Arts, with corporate sponsorship from Neuberger Berman Group. IF has been staged by invitation and support from McGill University, the University at Buffalo, the University at Malta, Alfred University, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Governors Island Trust, and the National Arts Club.
Stanzi Vaubel, PhD, as the founder and artistic director of the Indeterminacy Festival, Vaubel’s list of honors include a Fulbright Fellowship, NYSCA and NYFA awards, with invitations to perform at the Watermill Center, the Longhouse, Tanglewood Institute, WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase, and Carnegie Hall. Her festivals have been staged around North America and Europe with support from New York, Iowa, Nebraska, and Michigan arts councils. As a radio producer Vaubel has created programs for the Whitney Museum, WNYC, BBC, and Chicago Public Radio. Vaubel is a graduate of the Juilliard Pre-College and Northwestern University. She is currently on faculty at the New York Arts Program.
Philippe Treuille attended The Juilliard School and Northwestern University. Treuille’s Requiem for choir and orchestra was premiered in 2015 by the SymphoNYChorus. His Missa de Aqua, a mass for Baptism, premiered in 2019 by the Long Island Choral Society and Orchestra. Treuille’s music has been
performed nationally and internationally including the Rubin Museum, MoMA PS1, the French Consulate, Lincoln Center, the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Château de Fontainebleau, the American Institute of Architects, the DiMenna Center for Classical Music and at the Tanglewood Institute. Philippe Treuille’s awards include a National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts Music Composition Merit Award. More of his work is available at www.philippetreuille.com

Poets Afloat
2025-06-05 18:30 - 20:00 UTC | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
Poets Afloat
Thursday, June 5 at 6:30 pm
Tickets here Sliding scale donation. Proceeds go to the poets.
A reading of poems written during residencies aboard the vessels of New York Harbor’s heritage fleet.

The King's Men
2025-07-18 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
A play for nine women about men. More specifically about men playing women. When Queen Elizabeth dies and the theaters close, Shakespeare and his eccentric troupe of actors plot their next move.

Tickets here

Friday, July 18th at 7pm
Saturday, July 19th at 2pm & 7pm
Sunday, July 20th at 7pm
Friday, July 25th at 7pm
Sunday, July 27th at 5pm
Thursday, July 31 at 7pm
Friday, August 1st at 7pm
Saturday, August 2nd at 7pm

a Twenty Somethings Production

The Royal Pyrate
2025-08-16 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
The Royal Pyrate is a new musical that reimagines the 300-year-old love story of the pirate Black Sam Bellamy and Mary Hallet, a woman so ahead of her time she was accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts. Based on the real history of the Golden Age of Piracy, The Royal Pyrate stars Maggie Likcani, Danny Hayward, Korie Lee Blossey, Lauren Molina, and features an original score and lyrics by Jason Landon Marcus with a book by Chas LiBretto. Directed by Emily Abrams (Mindplay, NYTW 2050 Fellow, Ars Nova’s Emerging Leadership Fellow) the 100 minute musical blends sea shanty, roots rock, and pirate music for a score that will be performed by Jim Bertini, Charley Layton, Jason Landon Marcus, Charlie Bennet, Tais Szilagi, & Ellie Goodman.
TICKETS HERE
Saturday, Aug 16, at 7pm
Sunday, Aug 17, at 7pm
Saturday, Aug 23, at 7pm
Sunday, Aug 24, at 7pm
Saturday, Aug 30, at 7pm
Sunday, Aug 31, at 7pm

OPEN HOURS
2025-09-06 16:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
The Waterfront Museum is open on most SATURDAYS 1-5pm and THURSDAYS 4-8pm for free tours for families and individuals when the barge is docked in Red Hook.
We will be closed on November 27 and throughout the holiday season, from December 18 to January 1, 2026.

Liquid Cartographies
2025-09-19 08:00 - 10:00 (America/New_York) | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
Please join a network of social artists seeking new processes to address age-old problems, to imagine our world differently.
Learn about the emerging agenda, propositional questions, and our contributors on the Liquid Cartographies webpage.
Come listen, write, dance, dream, make art, study old maps, make new maps. There are limited tickets, so get yours soon here.

CLOSED
2025-09-27 08:00 - 2025-10-10 17:00 (America/New_York) | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
The barge will be closed on Saturday, May 2nd, for a private event.

HUGHIE
2025-10-18 18:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
Eugene O’Neill wrote eight one-act plays toward the end of his days. He threw seven into his fireplace one night. Only HUGHIE remained…
On October 18th and 19th, Red Hook’s own Bobby Cole returns to the stage as Erie Smith in Eugene O’Neill’s HUGHIE more than thirty years after first performing the role at Sunny’s back in 1992.
Set in 1928, just after New York’s infamous train derailment and on the cusp of the Great Depression, Hughie captures the smoky solitude and fragile hope of the city’s sleepless souls in O’Neill’s hauntingly lyrical style.
On Saturday the hour long performance of Hughie will be accompanied by two new short pieces in develpment by local writers.
On Sunday, The Milkman and Sons—a lively local four-piece 1920s jazz band—will keep the spirit swinging before and after the performance. Feel free to dress the part, and be ready to dance! O’Neill would’ve raised a glass to that.

The 2026 World Ferry Safety and Technology Conference
2026-05-06 - 2026-05-07 | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
The Ferry Safety and Technology Conference will take place in New York City on May 5-7, 2026. On May 6, the main part of the conference will take place at the Waterfront Museum Barge. Speakers will update us on the latest news about electric ferries coming to NYC, operational and structural approaches to the dilemma of carriage of electric vehicles aboard ferries; to the impact and response to changing global weather, innovative design solutions, and global opportunities. Live music will be provided by the indie rock band New Yeller.
This conference is being convened by the Worldwide Ferry Safety Association (WFSA).
REGISTER HERE

Swamp in the City: A Cajun & Creole Music Festival
2026-05-07 19:00 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
Get ready for four days of great music, delicious food, and inclusive community at the 9th Annual Swamp in the City: A Cajun & Creole Music Festival. Held along the scenic Red Hook waterfront, this festival brings the best of Cajun and Creole culture to Brooklyn, featuring some of the most talented musicians from Louisiana and beyond, plus plenty of opportunities to dance, eat, and celebrate.
The official kickoff party will be held at the Waterfront Museum on Thursday, May 7th, from 7 – 9:30 pm. The festivities will begin with a dance lesson, followed by performances from accordionist and Cajun musician Jesse Lége, and Louisiana music group The Revelers.
For a complete schedule of events, visit swampinthecity.com/schedule.
TICKETS HERE

The Fish Who Saved New York
2026-06-28 11:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
Starring Phoebe Legere, The Fish Who Saved New York is a family-friendly musical featuring comedy, audience participation, and high-seas adventure that kids will talk about all summer. Join us on Sunday, June 28th, for giant puppets, fun songs, and a cast of unforgettable undersea heroes aboard the historic Waterfront Museum Barge.
Schedule
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM: World Championship of Drawing a Soccer Ball Finals (for children aged 9-12), and How to Draw a Seahorse, a Starfish, and a River (for children aged 6 – 8)
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM: Break/Waterfront Exploration
2:00 PM: The Fish That Saved New York Harbor, World Premiere Performance
Phoebe Legere is a Juilliard-educated, multi-disciplinary artist. Her experimental music and performance art have established her as an NYC legend; she has opened for David Bowie’s 1990 Sound + Vision national tour, received a Pulitzer nomination with the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, and exhibited her work in the Brooklyn Museum, Venice Biennale, and Pompidou Centre. Her interactive work always reinforces her belief in art as a social and spiritual necessity.
Click here for tickets and more details.

Four Paintings
2026-07-02 18:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
Four Paintings continues the Waterfront Museum’s decades-long legacy of providing a home for neighboring artists and providing public access to the rich cultural, maritime, and labor history of the Red Hook waterfront. Housed aboard a 1914 railroad barge, the Waterfront Museum promotes historic preservation, the area’s maritime heritage, and an understanding of the importance of our water highway for commerce, commuters, culture, and recreation.

Joseph Reich is an American painter working in Red Hook, Brooklyn. His large-scale landscape paintings are rooted in sustained visual observation and attention paired with the rigorous physical practice of their making. For twelve years, he operated a storefront gallery and studio in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, developing his own exhibition practice. Joseph relocated his practice to Red Hook, Brooklyn, where his paintings reflect a complex interplay between landscape, industry, manufactured goods, work, and the built environment that evokes the museum’s mission of connecting the Brooklyn waterfront environment to its residents and its past. He has recently exhibited work at Andrew Logan Projects along with Six Paintings currently on view at Compound Art & Sound Gallery.
Opening Reception Thursday, July 2, 6-9pm
July 2 – September 19
Open Hours Saturdays 1-5pm & Thursdays 4-8pm
see events calendar for exceptions

More information here.

Galileo
2026-07-17 20:00 - 22:00 (America/New_York) | Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11231, United States
The Waterfront Museum is honored to present the Brooklyn Stage Company’s first production of Galileo, a Bertolt Brecht play that has only become more relevant to the modern audience.
After Brecht’s plays were banned in Germany in 1933, he fled to the United States, where he rewrote Life of Galileo, through which he reflected on war, the atom bomb, and the responsibility of knowledge. Nearly eighty years later, Galileo still asks the questions we’re wrestling with in 2026: Who decides what’s true? What happens when evidence challenges authority?
Brooklyn Stage Company is dedicated to developing new work by emerging playwrights, while each season presenting one play from the great theatrical canon. Last year, that was Eugene O’Neill’s Hughie. It was performed aboard the Waterfront Museum, a National Historic Landmark, and the home of the company’s very first production in 1992.
Returning to this space with Galileo continues the tradition that has always defined Brooklyn Stage Company: presenting timeless plays that speak directly to the world we’re living in today.

Click here to purchase your ticket!
