March 8, 2010
Subway archaeology to go on display at Transit Annex
After a renovation, the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex at Grand Central Terminal will reopen March 18 with a free exhibition of New Amsterdam artifacts discovered while building a subway extension in Lower Manhattan.
“Archeology at the South Ferry Terminal” will include more than 100 of the 65,000 artifacts — ceramic sherds, shells, coins, tobacco pipes, and architectural materials — found at the site before it reopened in February 2009 as the South Ferry subway station.
“Among the most important finds of the excavation were pieces of two 18th century landmarks — the Battery Wall and Whitehall Slip,” museum officials said in announcing the exhibition. “Stones from the Wall are on view, as are photographs of a section of the Wall that was reinstalled in the new South Ferry station. Whitehall Slip was built in stages from the 1730s to 1790s using landfilling and dredging. It allowed boats to dock and spurred the commercial and military use of lower Manhattan. Excavation of the Slip uncovered stone, construction material, 19th century English ceramics, household goods, refuse, and animal bones, furthering our knowledge of the city’s commerce and its residents’ lifestyles.”
The exhibition will be on display through July 5.
The Transit Museum annex is located in Grand Central in the Shuttle Passage next to the Station Master’s Office. The museum’s primary Brooklyn location features numbers old subways cars and buses as well as permanent and rotating exhibitions about the history of transit in NYC.
The Transit Museum has scheduled a March 20 tour to complement the new exhibition. “The Old Waterfront in New Amsterdam” will follow the original shoreline beyond Battery Park and along Pearl Street.
Picture source: New York Transit Museum; Chinese painted porcelain plate with “Canton” motif c. 1785-1850. This plate was mended from 21 separate sherds discovered in a single deposit. Though porcelain vessels exported from China were popular for much of the 18th century, they became more common in New York after the American Revolution, when direct trade between the United States and China began.
Earlier: New York Transit Museum Annex closes for renovation
Subway expansion hits centuries-old Battery Wall (2005)
Touring Gotham’s archaeology with book in hand (2004)
March 8, 2010 11:10 AM in Cheap Stuff, Downtown, History, Kids, Midtown, Museums, Out of Manhattan, Tours, Transportology
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