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Sailors' Snug Harbor, also known as Sailors Snug Harbor or Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden or, informally, Snug Harbor, is a collection of architecturally significant 19th-century buildings set in an 83-acre park along the Kill Van Kull on the north shore of Staten Island in New York City, United States.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://snug-harbor.org/about-us/ )〕 It was once a home for aged sailors. 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 includes 26 Greek Revival, Beaux Arts, Italianate and Victorian style buildings. 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. ==History== Snug Harbor was founded through a bequest after the death of Revolutionary War soldier and ship master Captain Robert Richard Randall, namesake of the nearby neighborhood of Randall Manor. Randall left his country estate in Manhattan, bounded by Fifth Avenue, Broadway, 10th Street, and the southern side of 8th Street adjacent to what is now Washington Square, to build an institution to care for "aged, decrepit and worn-out" seamen. Randall's disappointed heirs contested the will extensively, delaying the opening of the sailors' home for decades. 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. Sailors' Snug Harbor finally opened in 1833, the country's first home for retired merchant seamen. It began with a single building, now the centerpiece in the row of five Greek Revival temple-like buildings on the New Brighton waterfront. From 1867 to 1884, Captain Thomas Melville, a retired sea captain and brother of ''Moby-Dick'' author Herman Melville, was governor of Snug Harbor.〔Herman Melville: A Biography, by Hershel Parker, 1996, p. 651〕 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.〔 At its peak in the late 19th century, about 1,000 retired sailors lived at Snug Harbor, then one of the wealthiest charities in New York. Its Washington Square area properties yielded a surplus exceeding the retirement home's costs by $100,000 a year.〔 By the mid-20th century, however, Snug Harbor was in financial difficulty. Once-grand structures fell into disrepair, and some were demolished; the ornate white-marble Randall Memorial Church was torn down in 1952. With the arrival of the Social Security system in the 1930s, demand for accommodation for old sailors declined; by the mid-1950s, fewer than 200 residents remained. In the 1960s, the institution's trustees proposed to redevelop the site with high-rise buildings; the new New York City Landmarks Commission stepped forward to save the remaining buildings, designating them landmark structures, and listing them on the National Register of Historic Places. A series of legal battles ensued, but the validity of landmark designation was ultimately upheld and it was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965.〔〔 and 〕 In the 1970s, the trustees moved the institution to Sea Level, North Carolina and sold the Staten Island site to the City of New York.〔 Today, Randall's Trust no longer operates a retirement home, but (the Trustees of the Sailors' Snug Harbor in the City of New York ) continues its work, using funds from the endowment to help mariners all over the country. Its office is at 40 Exchange Place, Suite 1701 NY, NY 10005. 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.〔Merger opens a new era at Snug Harbor; Cultural Center unites with Botanical Garden, benefiting programs at the sprawling facility, June 29, 2008, by Michael J. Fressola, Staten Island Advance, http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/121473270678330.xml&coll=1〕 The Sailors' Snug Harbor Archives are preserved at the Stephen B. Luce Library at SUNY Maritime College in the Bronx. A station on the now-defunct North Shore Branch of the Staten Island Railway bore the name Sailors Snug Harbor; a retaining wall and stairways from the station still exist. Now, the travels from and to the St. George Terminal, stopping at Snug Harbor's front gate. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sailors' Snug Harbor」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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