About the Project

Catch — & — Release is a participatory design project in South Street Seaport that unearths hidden and forgotten aspects of the neighborhood’s rich history and culture. As the birthplace of maritime New York City, South Street Seaport holds extraordinary cultural assets that have been overlooked while going through generations of economic and environmental changes. By animating inactive spaces with cultural activities featuring recent and historical local lore, Catch — & — Release deepens a sense of place and community for both neighborhood inhabitants and visitors.

Part 1 (December 2013 – March 2014)

Part 2: The Seaport Stories (April – October 2014)

The second part of Catch — & — Release provides a deeper understanding of the South Street Seaport’s history and culture. Multiple perspectives and personal memories of the Seaport, collected through community engagement, charrettes, and in-depth interviews, reveals the lively cultural mosaic which has defined a sense of place for the community for the past half century.

This unique storytour guides visitors to explore the Seaport, either on site or through the website, listening to the untold stories by its characters: a painter, a photographer, a fishmonger, a composer, and others, whose stories are all intertwined within this twelve-block enclave.

As a performative launch event, we had two special nighttime walking tours led by three of the storytellers: Barbara Mensch, the photographer; Frank Mineo, the fish monger; and Naima Rauam, the painter. Starting at the South Street Seaport Museum (housed in the historic Schermerhorn Row which was built as counting houses in 1812) the walking tour provided visitors a special opportunity to listen to the vivid tales on site and share their own stories, experiencing the Seaport through bringing back to life what have made the Seaport extraordinary.

Part 1

Photographs by Yeju Choi

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Project Team and Credits