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Time spent | 57 minutes |
Best thing I saw or learned | John Noble made his art in a houseboat studio that he cobbled together, Frankenstein’s Monster-like, out of sundry boat bits and bobs over years. The Collection acquired his studio, restored it beautifully, and moved the whole thing into a room in the building, where you can peek inside. |
This museum suffers from a misleading name. I walked into the Noble Maritime Collection expecting a dark basement full of dusty old nautical stuff, with a stuffy aristocratic bent. Instead, the collection occupies three light-filled, airy, beautifully restored floors of Building D at Sailors’ Snug Harbor.
It covers four main topics:
- The life and art of John Noble, for whom the collection is named and who primarily made prints and drawings that captured the life of the harbor.
- The founding and establishment of Snug Harbor in the early 19th century
- The lives of sailors who retired to Snug Harbor
- Robbins Reef Light, and Kate Walker, the remarkable woman who served as lighthousekeeper for over thirty years.