New York City is home to more galleries, auction houses, and museum collections per square mile than anywhere in the country. Moving fine art through it — and out of it — requires infrastructure that standard freight carriers don't have and can't replicate.

Atelier 4 has operated in New York City since 1989. The Long Island City flagship, opened in 2014, is a 65,000-square-foot purpose-built facility housing climate-controlled vaults, an in-house crate fabrication shop, a viewing room, and the hub of a ten-route national shuttle network. That's not a marketing line. It's the physical fact of what fine art logistics at scale requires.

Removal and storage of fine art, antiques, and artifacts in the event of an approaching storm should be a planning task, not an emergency response. Collectors, museums, historic sites, and galleries that fare best are the ones that planned and pre-arranged removal and storage. Owners of high-value tangible property who fail to plan are often left scrambling when a storm approaches, and more often are simply hoping for the best as the wind and rain take their toll.

Hurricane season runs from June through November, with peak activity from mid-August through October. If you're waiting for a named storm to start thinking about contingency plans for your most precious objects, your options will be significantly limited.

Fine art transportation, installation, and storage require more than careful handling — they require climate-controlled vehicles, trained art technicians, and storage designed and built to museum standards. Here's how it works.