Sea Cliff Village Museum to reopen this weekend

There will be a lot to see when the Sea Cliff Village Museum reopens on Saturday. Considered a village gem by many residents, it has been closed for nine months because of the coronavirus pandemic and for renovations. 

The museum has a new air conditioning system and new LED lighting, and in addition to the permanent collection on the second floor, it has added new paintings and relocated its gift shop to the entrance.

And there is a new exhibit, “Sea Cliff’s Waterfront in the Resort Era 1890-1920,” a collection of photographs, textiles and memorabilia from a period when Sea Cliff was bustling with commercial and recreational activity.

“By the 1890s, Sea Cliff had become known as a summer resort,” museum Director Courtney Chambers said. “It was easy to get to from New York City, and there were a lot of summer residents who would take a cottage for the summer or stay in a hotel for the summer in Sea Cliff.”

After the turn of the 20th century, the village also became a destination for weekend excursions, Chambers added. “People would take steamers out to Sea Cliff from the city or from Westchester,” she said. “So we’re just trying to capture that brief moment of time.”

The hope is that the exhibit will spark visitors’ interest in the village’s history.

“Sea Cliff now is sort of a bedroom community,” Chambers said. “But at the time, it was this really fabulous resort destination. You look at the pictures of the waterfront … and it was so different, and yet in another way, just exactly the same, because the physical landscape really hasn’t changed. So I think it’s exciting to see Sea Cliff as it was and compare it to how it is now.” 

The exhibition highlights a donation the museum received last summer, a uniform and suitcase that once belonged to Capt. Bertram Scholes, of the Life Saving Service of the City of New York. He belonged to the Sea Cliff division, stationed at Tilley’s Pavilion, which was once on the village’s waterfront and no longer exists. In the early 1900s, the American Red Cross estimates, there were 9,000 drownings a year in the United States, perhaps because there were no professional lifeguarding services. Scholes was among the many men who volunteered on weekends to patrol the beaches. 

“So we have his captain’s uniform,” Chambers said. “And we have a lot of his papers and his letters, and we have some of his photographs.”

Kristine Janusas, a trustee of the museum and the president of Friends of the Sea Cliff Village Museum, calls herself a “fourth-generation Sea Cliffian.” “There will be a photo of my grandmother and grandfather at Sea Cliff beach during the 1910-to-1920 time period in the old-time bathing suits,” Janusas said. “And that’s where my grandparents met, actually.” 

Roberta Nuttall, 86, a museum volunteer and a retired attorney from Manhattan, helped select the textiles for the exhibition. Nuttall said that what excites her are the one-of-a-kind Victorian dresses that will be on display.

“The construction of the Victorian dresses is just fascinating, [as are] the handiwork, the laces, the embroidery, the special, additional items that go on,” Nuttall said. “That’s all very exciting, because it’s all handwork that, you know, isn’t done anymore.”

Nuttall has encouraged her sons, who live in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Brooklyn and Chicago to come to the new exhibition to support her. “We want everybody to come,” she said. “It’s really going to be great.”

The museum is open on Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Wednesdays from noon to 5, and by appointment. The upcoming exhibition will be on view until October. If you are interested in becoming a docent, email museum@seacliff-ny.gov.