Posts

Showing posts from November, 2012

Snug Harbor

Image
Three weeks ago Hurricane Sandy made landfall and devastated New Jersey, where I live, as well as New York City, where I work. While trying to get back to "normal" with public transit and power outages still affecting daily life and while helping my neighbors who have lost so much, I've been thinking a lot about a trip we made recently to Snug Harbor in Staten Island. Founded in the early 19th century as a home for "aged, decrepit and worn-out" seaman, Sailors' Snug Harbor is now used as a cultural center and botanical garden and noted for its variety of architecture, which appears to have been spared the damage suffered by other sections of New York's "forgotten borough" although the grounds suffered "substantial tree damage." The Greek Revival buildings of Snug Habor have landmark status In 1801, wealthy New York sea captain Robert Richard Randall founded a charity dedicated to providing for aged seamen, who in the