Our Story

Snug Harbor is New York City’s only culture park—a rare place where art, history, and nature come together to inspire everyone who visits. Stretching across 83 acres on Staten Island’s North Shore, Snug Harbor blends lush gardens and open meadows with museums, artist studios, performance spaces, and one of the nation’s most significant collection of 19th‑century architecture. It is a place for exploration—welcoming the naturally curious, neighbors, and visitors from around the world.

What began in the early 1800s as a charitable haven for “aged, decrepit, and worn‑out sailors” has transformed into a living, breathing landscape of creativity. When the original Sailors’ Snug Harbor campus fell into decline in the mid‑20th century, threats of demolition and redevelopment galvanized local artists, preservationists, and community leaders. Together, they fought to protect Snug Harbor’s historic buildings from destruction, and in 1976 reimagined the site as a public cultural center and botanical garden, bringing vitality to Staten Island’s North Shore.

Today, Snug Harbor is a vibrant culture park, a Smithsonian Affiliate, a proud member of the NYC Cultural Institutions Group, and a thriving home for artists, learners, innovators, families, and nature lovers. More than 500,000 visitors each year come to experience our museums, performances, festivals, working farm, botanical gardens, woodlands, wetlands, and historic architecture.

Snug Harbor is more than a destination. It is a cultural ecosystem—where creativity takes root, nature nurtures imagination, and heritage provides a foundation for new ideas. It is a place transformed by community, sustained by vision, and open to all.

Welcome to New York City’s culture park, where culture and nature meet.