Museums & Galleries in New Bedford

Save the Bay started in 1970 to combat the raw sewage and industrial toxins that littered Narragansett Bay. Since that time, Save the Bay’s staff and volunteers have steadfastly revived the bay and its surrounding ecology by using a sustainable-ecosystem approach. The heart of their operation is the 15,000-square-foot Save the Bay Center. Its stormwater management system contains a vegetated roof, a coastal-buffer zone, swales, and basins that can absorb and filter 164,826 gallons of rain water. Made from recycled steel and metal, the center’s interior hosts an array of educational programs for adults and kids. The center also features an aquarium, camps, and marine-life tours aboard its 45-foot U.S. Coast Guard-certified vessel Alletta Morris or its 27-foot vessel Swift.

For a complete list of membership benefits, click here.

In 1799, Salem’s weathered seafarers founded the East India Marine Society and began to assemble “natural and artificial curiosities” brought back from their journeys to Asia, Africa, and other distant lands. Over the following centuries, the collection grew, and while it did, the Society evolved through various shapes until it became the Peabody Essex Museum. Today, more than 1.8 million of these works invite visitors to explore the world in a facility that underwent a $200 million transformation in 2003.

The majority of works now rest in a Moshe Safdie–designed glass-and-brick building, focused around a sunny atrium whose various architectural silhouettes echo local forms. This new building joins the East India Marine Hall, built by the seafarers’ society in 1825 and dedicated in a ceremony attended by President John Adams. Today, that National Historic Landmark hosts society-member portraits and a number of the hall’s original objects; in other galleries, paintings and sculptures by Japanese, Indian, and Chinese artists hang on the walls or perch in glass cases like pies with personal-space issues. Guests can also tour Yin Yu Tang, the only complete Qing Dynasty house outside of China and a 200-year-old structure with intricate carvings.

In 2013, the Peabody Essex Museum will add exciting new displays to its rotating special exhibitions, from Faberge treasures to impressionistic masterpieces from the likes of Monet, Renoir, and Manet, as well as modern African-American art and contemporary art from India. After marveling at the skill and diversity of the artwork, visitors can drop by the Atrium Café or the Garden Restaurant for a bite to eat.