Стейтен-Айлендтағы «Теңізшілердің Тынығу Ошағы» мәдени орталығы

Cultural center in Staten Island, New York
the station

Sailors' Snug Harbor, also known as Sailors Snug Harbor and informally as Snug Harbor, is a collection of architecturally significant 19th century buildings on Staten Island, New York City. The buildings are set in an park along the Kill Van Kull in New Brighton, on the North Shore of Staten Island. Some of the buildings and the grounds are used by arts organizations under the umbrella of the Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden. Sailors' Snug Harbor was founded as a retirement home for sailors after Captain Robert Richard Randall bequeathed funds for that purpose upon his 1801 death. Snug Harbor opened in 1833 as a sailors' retirement home located within what is now Building C, and additional structures were built on the grounds in later years. The buildings became a cultural center after the sailors' home moved away in 1976. The grounds and buildings are operated by Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden, a nonprofit, Smithsonian affiliated organization. Sailors' Snug Harbor includes 26 Greek Revival, Beaux Arts, Italianate and Victorian style buildings. Among those are "Temple Row", five interlocking Greek Revival buildings labeled A through E. The buildings are set in extensive, landscaped grounds, surrounded by the 19th century cast iron fence. The grounds also include a chapel and a sailors' cemetery. The cultural center includes the Staten Island Botanical Garden, the Staten Island Children's Museum, the Staten Island Museum, the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, and the Noble Maritime Collection, as well as the Art Lab and the Music Hall. The site is considered Staten Island's "crown jewel" and "an incomparable remnant of New York's 19th century seafaring past." It is a National Historic Landmark District. Several buildings in the complex are New York City designated landmarks.

Snug Harbor was founded through a bequest after the 1801 death of Revolutionary War soldier and ship master Captain Robert Richard Randall, namesake of the nearby neighborhood of Randall Manor. In his will, Randall left his country estate in Manhattan, bounded by Fifth Avenue, Broadway, 10th Street, and the southern side of 8th Street in present day Greenwich Village, to build an institution to care for "aged, decrepit and worn out" seamen. The first meeting of the corporation of Sailors’ Snug Harbor took place in 1806. In its first election, then Mayor DeWitt Clinton was elected president. Several challenges to Randall's will took place; one by a Stephen Brown who alleged that Randall failed as executor of the estate of his grandfather in New Jersey from which the Randall estate was derived, and one from Anglican Bishop John Inglis of Nova Scotia who alleged he was a proper collateral heir through his common ancestor John Crooke. The corporation was ironically legally represented by Thomas Addis Emmet, a former member of the Society of United Irishmen, an organization inspired by the success of the American Revolution to fight the British in Ireland. Future President Martin Van Buren also served on the defense team, and Daniel Webster provided counsel to the plaintiffs. By the time the will challenge was settled, the once rural land around the Manhattan estate had become well developed. Snug Harbor's trustees (appointed by Randall's will, they included the mayor of New York City, the president and vice president of the Marine Society, senior ministers of the Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches, the head of the Chamber of Commerce, and the chancellor of the State) decided to maximize the profits on the Manhattan property. They changed the proposed site of the institution to another piece of land bequeathed by Randall: a 130 acre plot on Staten Island overlooking the Kill Van Kull. The land was purchased in May 1831. The first building, now building C, was the first known work to be designed by Minard Lafever and completed in August 1833. In 1890, Captain Gustavus Trask, the governor of Snug Harbor, built a Renaissance Revival church, the Randall Memorial Chapel and, next to it, a music hall, both designed by Robert W. Gibson. The buildings were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, and the grounds was declared a National Historic Landmark district in 1976. The trustees sold the Staten Island site to the New York City government in two separate transactions in 1972 and 1974, totaling $9.7 million. However, the city incurred a budget deficit as a result of the 1975 New York City fiscal crisis, leaving the government unable to perform even minor maintenance. The trustees had also been losing about $300,000 a year from the Staten Island site, and they found that it was unprofitable to keep operating the Staten Island facility. In June 1976, the trustees moved the institution to Sea Level, North Carolina. Two sailors on the Staten Island property held out until September 1976. The Trustees of the Sailors' Snug Harbor in the City of New York continues to use funds from the endowment to help mariners all over the country. The Sailors' Snug Harbor Archives are preserved at the Stephen B. Luce Library at the State University of New York's Maritime College in the Bronx.

The Snug Harbor Cultural Center and the Staten Island Botanical Garden were established in 1975. The former would operate the buildings, while the latter would maintain the gardens on the grounds. On September 12, 1976, the Snug Harbor Cultural Center was opened to the public. In 2008, the Cultural Center and the Staten Island Botanical Garden merged to become the Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden.

The five interlocking Greek Revival buildings at Snug Harbor are located on the northern end of the grounds, near Richmond Terrace, and are known as buildings A through E from west to east. The five buildings were designed by Minard Lafever and Richard Smyth, and constructed from 1831 to 1880. Building C was an administration building while the remaining structures were dormitories. The buildings are parallel to each other, but due to the differing facade designs, buildings B and D appear to be set back from buildings A, C, and E.

Another set of buildings, labeled F through H, are respectively located south of buildings D through B, and are connected to each other and to the buildings immediately north of them. The Great Hall and Music Hall are located east of buildings H through F. South of the Music Hall is the Veteran's Memorial Hall, formerly known as the chapel. A matron's house and a maintenance building are south of buildings H through F and east of the chapel. The Staten Island Children's Museum and World Trade Center Educational Tribute are in the center of the grounds, south of the maintenance building and matron's house, while the Snug Harbor Administration building is south of the museum. On the west end of the site are five cottages labeled A through E.

Building A was designed by Richard Smyth and constructed in 1879. The structure was initially intended as a dormitory building. The structure was initially intended as a dormitory building. Although the Staten Island Museum planned to expand there by 2022, the building is still being renovated as of 2023.

Building C, also known as the Administration Building, is a Greek Revival building designed by Minard Lafever and constructed from 1831 to 1883; it is Lafever's oldest surviving work. Building C's interior was renovated in 1884. Building C houses part of the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art. The structure was initially intended as a dormitory building.

Building E was designed by Richard Smyth and constructed in 1880. The structure was initially intended as a dormitory building. Stylistically, it was a "transitional" building, with stylistic elements mainly rooted in Italianate architecture as well as some elements of Greek Revival architecture. The chapel contains a gable roof. The front entrance consists of a tower with a belfry projecting from the front end of the chapel. The entrance leads to a plaster walled vestibule with three round arches and three plaques. The brick facade has six round arched windows on each side, separated by pilasters. At the rear is a one story extension with an office and sacristy. The walls were repainted that year, with decorative elements resembling panels and pilasters. and the building is not open to the public as of 2018. The grounds include a 1893 zinc fountain featuring the god Neptune, now indoors with a replica in its place. The New York Times described the statue as sitting "in the middle, astride a shell held aloft by sea monsters, his trident raised. Jets of water spurt from the fountain's center and from bouquets of metal calla lilies to its sides." Several gates flanked by granite posts were embedded in the fence. The northern gatehouse on Richmond Terrace is directly in front of building C and set back 15 feet (5 m) behind the iron fence. It is trapezoidal in plan and has a high archway in the center. Guard rooms with rectangular windows flank either side of the archway. Unused marble and sandstone from the construction of the original structures was used to create the quoins surrounding the archway and window openings. The majority of the over 7,000 bodies (including those of military sailors) now lay in unmarked graves because their headstones were removed in the 1980s and put into storage for preservation after the cemetery became inactive.

Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden is a nonprofit, Smithsonian affiliated organization that operates Sailors' Snug Harbor. Its primary purpose is "to operate, manage and develop the premises known as Sailors Snug Harbor as a cultural and educational center and park." In 2005, it was among 406 New York City arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $20 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation, which was made possible through a donation by former Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg. In 2006, the revenues and expenses of the nonprofit were both around US$3.7 million, and its year end assets were $2.6 million. It is home to the Staten Island Children's Theater Association (SICTA) and the Staten Island Conservatory of Music.

The Staten Island Botanical Garden maintains extensive gardens. The White Garden was inspired by Vita Sackville West's famous garden at Sissinghurst. Connie Gretz's Secret Garden was dedicated in 2000 with funding from local resident Randy Gretz, in honor of his late wife; it contains a castle, a maze and walled secret garden. The New York Chinese Scholar's Garden, an authentic, walled, Chinese garden, was built in 1998 in the style of the famous gardens of Suzhou. It was founded inside the architecturally significant Greek Revival buildings of Sailors‘ Snug Harbor. Although the Newhouse was founded with a focus on artists who live or have their studios on Staten Island and art that reflects the history of Staten Island or Snug Harbor, the Newhouse moved on to a broader focus on contemporary art. Unlike many New York museums, the Newhouse has the space to mount large shows and large works, and can add outdoor sculpture to the mix.

The Noble Maritime Collection is a museum in building D, with a particular emphasis on the work of artist/lithographer/sailor John A. Noble (1913–1983). The Washington Post called the exhibit of a houseboat that Noble converted into an artist's studio "compelling It is a home on the water and an artist's lair all in one, complete with wooden surfaces, portholes, an engineer's bed, a drawing table, and printmaking and etching implements." The New York Sun called the Noble Collection "an unsung gem among New York museums."

The Staten Island Children's Museum features a rotating collection of hands on exhibits and an extensive year round live animal collection of exotic arthropods. The Children's Museum consists of the main building which was originally built in 1913 and the old Snug Harbor barn where the livestock was originally kept to feed the residents of Sailors’ Snug Harbor. When the museum was developed, a modern walkway was built connecting the two structures to create one museum building.

The Staten Island Museum opened a location at Snug Harbor in September 2015. After operating two locations for almost two years, the museum closed the St. George location and consolidated its operations in building A. The Museum hopes to expand to building B by 2022. In attendance were some 600 residents of the home who sat on plain wooden seats, and 300 trustees and their guests who occupied the venue's upholstered balcony seats.

The bus travels to and from the Staten Island Ferry and Staten Island Railway at St. George Terminal, stopping at Snug Harbor's front gate. Additionally, the Sailors' Snug Harbor station was served by the Staten Island Railway's now defunct North Shore Branch. Although the station closed in 1953, a retaining wall and stairways from the station still exist.

In an 1898 article in Ainslee's Magazine, "When The Sails Are Furled: Sailor's Snug Harbor," the soon to be famous novelist Theodore Dreiser provided an amusing non fiction account of the obstreperous and frequently intoxicated residents of Snug Harbor. The American maritime folk song collector William Main Doerflinger collected a number of songs from residents at Sailors’ Snug Harbor which were among those published in his 1951 compilation, "Shantymen and Shantyboys", reprinted in 1972 as "Songs of the Sailorman and Lumberman". In 2004, local performing arts company Sundog Theatre commissioned an original play by Damon DiMarco and Jeffrey Harper about the sailors' life at Snug Harbor. My Mariners was performed at the Harbor's Veteran's Memorial Hall. The 2009 illustrated novel Peter Pigeon of Snug Harbor, by Ed Weiss, is set almost entirely at Snug Harbor – from its days as an old sailors' home to its new incarnation as an arts center. The 2011 comedy film Damsels in Distress, written and directed by Whit Stillman, filmed on location at Snug Harbor, using it to represent a fictitious East Coast college. Sailors' Snug Harbor was featured in Ghost Hunters, where TAPS was asked to investigate the paranormal claims there. In January 2013, an episode of Ghost Adventures was filmed at and focused on Sailors’ Snug Harbor and the spirits haunting the area.