The Noble at Home
The Noble at Home is a collection of online exhibitions, education programs, instructional videos, downloadable resources, virtual tours, and performances curated and created by our staff especially for you and your family. By exploring the content on this page, you will get the Noble museum experience from the safety of your home during this public health crisis. We hope everyone in your family learns something about our maritime heritage while being creative and having fun.
Education Programs and Activities
We have converted our education programs into a series of fun videos and online activities. They are designed as supplemental materials for students who are learning at home, but contain cool maritime facts and lessons that are great for all ages. Learn a step, sing along, and make art with us!
Sailors' Hornpipe
This video is a maritime history lesson and fun way to exercise all in one! Learn about explorer Captain Cook's activities at sea, and master a lively sailors' hornpipe. The museum' program director and Irish step dancer performs and demonstrates the dance accompanied by musician and historian Bob Wright on banjo.
How to Make Pop-Up Cards
Making pop-up cards is a fun skill to have because you can make personalized greetings for any occasion. This video will teach you how to make a pop-up scene of New York Harbor using construction paper, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, glue, and cut outs or photos.
Hardtack, Sailors’ Snack
Voyages throughout the centuries lasted for weeks, and sometimes months, at times with no land in sight. Have you ever wondered what sailors snacked on while on the high seas, after their fresh food supply was gone? This video will teach you about hardtack, the biscuit that every resourceful sailor learned to bake and bring onboard.
Kate's Home in the Harbor book reading
Join us in the gardens of Snug Harbor Cultural Center for the reading of an excerpt from the book Kate's Home in the Harbor: A Robbins Reef Lighthouse Workbook. Learn why it was difficult for Kate to adjust to living at Robbins Reef, and think about how you would feel if you were faced with the same challenges.
Printmaking with Cardboard
The museum continues John Noble's tradition of printmaking by teaching thousands of visiting schoolchildren how to use a printing press every year. Printmaking is a way of making multiple copies of art, which appealed to Noble because he believed art should be accessible to all. No press at home? No problem! This video shows you how to make reusable printmaking plates out of cardboard, a method that will work with any paint and glue you have on hand!
Online Exhibitions
E.F. Neilson (1865-1909)
Paintings by a New Brighton Artist in the Sailors’ Snug Harbor Collection
This is a Print
Tugboats Night & Day
In 2008, we presented the exhibition Tugboats Night & Day which mapped out the importance of the maritime industry, and specifically tugboats, in the economy of our lives, delivering goods to our communities. Active all day and night, tugboats are integral to the larger maritime ecosystem, pushing and pulling other vessels through busy or narrow waterways.
Noble’s Pipe Lithographs
Ship Model Gallery
Cultural After-School Adventures
The Noble Maritime Collection is a museum in Snug Harbor that uses art and storytelling to celebrate the history of the
waterfront. We are delighted to present this special project called “Patterns of the Sea,” based on “The Crab who Cried Shark,” the maritime version of the classic story about the boy who cried wolf. Read the crab’s story and follow him on his adventures through the water.
Virtual Tours
Public Programs
CloseKnit
Participate in CloseKnit from home! Our longest-running public program is a knitting club which benefits mariners and families in need through local charities such as Project Hospitality and the Seamen's Church Institute's Christmas at Sea program. Click below to learn more about this maritime tradition and obtain downloadable knitting patterns.
Sea Shanty Sessions
Led by the Folk Music Society of New York, Sea Shanty Sessions take place at the museum on the third Sunday of every month. Musicians and folk music lovers gather to sing along to traditional maritime work songs sung on merchant vessels during the Age of Sail. Please enjoy this special Sea Shanty Session, with guest star Hughie Jones, filmed on May 3, 2019.
The creation of The Noble at Home was generously funded, in part, by the NYC COVID-19 Response and Impact Fund in The New York Community Trust and in part by a Humanities New York CARES Grant with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the federal CARES Act. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed on this website do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The Noble Maritime Collection’s FY2022 education programs are generously supported, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with Councilman Joseph Borelli, former Councilwoman Debi Rose, and the City Council; the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; the Institute of Museum and Library Services*; a Humanities New York SHARP Grant with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the federal American Rescue Plan Act; Richmond County Savings Foundation; Northfield Bank Foundation; a grant from the Lily Auchincloss Foundation; and the members of the museum.
The museum’s exhibitions are made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, a Humanities New York SHARP Grant with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the federal American Rescue Plan Act, and a grant from the Lily Auchincloss Foundation. This is a Print was additionally supported by the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of former Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Tugboats Night & Day was additionally supported by the Richmond County Savings Foundation. The Ship Model Gallery was additionally funded by the Staten Island Foundation.
The Noble Maritime Collection's public programs are supported, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with former District 49 Councilwoman Debi Rose and the City Council; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; grants from the Lily Auchincloss Foundation and the Investors Foundation; and The Noble Maritime Collection is funded in part by a Humanities New York SHARP Grant with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the federal American Rescue Plan Act. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
*The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in these programs do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
