4/30/22 Staten Island AH/UC Box 8024

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mack

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Sailors' Snug Harbor Cultural Center
We visit a former home for retired sailors
(Photos/words © urban75, Dec 2007)

The brainchild of Captain Robert Richard Randall, the attractively named Sailors Snug Harbor was the US's first - and only - home for retired merchant seamen when it opened in 1833.

A privately endowed institution offering lodging, food, healthcare, and companionship for 'aged, decrepit and worn-out sailors', something like 1,000 residents were living on the site in 1900, although the introduction of a Social Security system in the US saw numbers declining to less than 200 by the mid-1950s.

snug-harbor-postcard.jpg
Old postcard of Snug Harbor.

In an attempt to reduce running costs of the large site, the Trustees of Sailor's Snug Harbor started demolishing some of the crumbling buildings, and by the 1960s developers were encircling the site with plans to demolish the lot.

A preservation campaign led to six of the twenty buildings at Snug Harbor being designated at the first meeting of New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1965.

The entire 83-acre site was eventually purchased by the City of New York in July 1976 with the remaining sailors relocating to new quarters in Sea Level, North Carolina.

First opening to the public in September 1976, the site now serves as the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, housing Contemporary Art, Music Hall, Art Lab Art School, the Staten Island Botanical Garden, the Staten Island Children's Museum and the Noble Maritime Collection.

There's also a yearly outdoor Harmony Street Fair, and regular concerts throughout the year in various small indoor venues, the 1892 Music Hall and Veterans Memorial Hall.
 
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