Ceremony Starts New Era for Museum
This Monday, September 3, The Nantucket Life-Saving Museum will close for the season earlier than usual so that construction can begin on its new addition. At 4 p.m. that afteroon, the Egan Maritime Foundation (EMF), parent organization for the museum, will hold a groundbreaking ceremony at the 158 Polpis Road location.
The Nantucket Life-Saving Museum was incorporated 40 years ago to preserve the tales of the tragic shipwrecks around the island and stories detailing the heroic exploits of Nantucketers serving with the Massachusetts Humane Society, the United States Life-Saving Service, and the United States Coast Guard.
During the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, more than 700 vessels were wrecked around Nantucket, and hundreds of mariners perished, often in sight of shore. For the people living along the Massachusetts coast, including those on our island, shipwrecks were not anonymous events. The mariners who lost their lives just offshore were poignant reminders of the fathers and sons who had set off to sea themselves. Faced with the tragic human cost of those wrecks, Nantucketers became active participants in America’s developing life-saving efforts,z+ risking their lives again and again so that hundreds of sailors would survive and return to those they loved.
Initiated by the Advisory Board of the Nantucket Life-Saving Museum in 2002, the construction project poised to begin emerged as the “number one priority in 2005,” according to Bob Egan, president of the board of trustees for the Egan Maritime Foundation. The plan acknowledges the strong connection that many descendants of islanders have with the Life-Saving Museum and recognizes the need to maintain the museum’s character. For Philip Read, vice president of the EMF and president of the Nantucket Life-Saving Museum advisory board, “It’s a longtime dream that is finally realized.”
The addition to the museum will provide much needed space for the care, preservation, and display of the collection and is designed to provide a more satisfying experience to the adults and children who visit the museum.
The new museum will also include a gallery that will focus on a series of notable shipwrecks, a changing exhibit gallery, and expanded educational facilities. New features will be added to the existing artifacts, and the museum will have air-conditioning and heat.
“It’s going to be wonderful!” says EMF Executive Director Jean Grimmer. “One of the things we did in planning this addition is to work on the stories and then consider what space we need to tell the stories...it’s about what was needed to give the visitors a really good experience...we’re going to do a lot in the new welcome area to set the stage and explain why there were so many wrecks around Nantucket,” she explained.
Monday’s ceremony will begin at 4 p.m., with opening remarks by Phil Read. Donald B. Shackelford, chair of the capital campaign will then speak. Museum Curator Jeremy Slavitz will explain plans to do restoration and conservation work on many of the museum artifacts while construction is underway.
Provided that construction stays on its projected course, the new museum will open early in the summer of 2008.
