Snug Harbor Music Hall
1000T Richmond Terrace | also 1000 Richmond Terrace | Snug Harbor | built 1900
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1892
Sailors' Snug Harbor opens its music hall with a performance of the cantata "The Rose Maiden"
The hall, designed by English-born architect Robert W. Gibson, opened in July 1892 on the grounds of Sailors' Snug Harbor in New Brighton, ranking as the city's second-oldest music hall after Carnegie Hall. About 600 residents watched the first performance from plain wooden seats, while some 300 trustees and their guests sat in cushioned balcony seats above them.
“Its inaugural performance was the cantata, "The Rose Maiden." In attendance were around 600 residents in plain wooden seats and 300 trustees…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1911
The music hall begins showing films to the Snug Harbor residents
Alongside live acts such as the Georgia Minstrels and the Boston Ladies Schubert Quartet, the hall added movie screenings in 1911, and sound projection followed in 1930. The building eventually went dark at some point in the 1970s, when the sailors' home was short of money and its population of residents had dwindled.
“It added film screenings in 1911 and sound projection in 1930. The building closed sometime in the 1970s…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1987
Rafael Viñoly's firm wins a competition to renovate the shuttered music hall
In 1987 the Snug Harbor Cultural Center held a design competition, and the winner, Rafael Vinoly Architects, proposed to enlarge the stage and repair peeling paint, holes in the balcony floor and fallen plaster. The estimate of $12 million climbed to $20 million, and the scheme was shelved and finally abandoned, leaving the hall to deteriorate further while it stayed closed.
“In 1987, Rafael Vinoly Architects won the Snug Harbor Cultural Center's design competition for the renovation of the Snug Harbor Music Hall.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1997
The music hall partly reopens after more than two decades closed
In 1996 Viñoly's firm took on a far smaller $3 million job aimed only at making the building usable again. The hall partly reopened in 1997, though at first it had no restrooms; those and other facilities came in a $3.2 million second phase, which also restored some original details and was completed in 2004.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2003
The hall is renamed for former borough president Ralph J. Lamberti
In 2003 the building was officially named the Honorable Ralph J. Lamberti Music Hall. Lamberti had served as Staten Island's borough president and had also chaired Snug Harbor's board of directors. The 686-seat Greek Revival auditorium officially carries his name.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2019
New York City commits nearly $20 million to expand the music hall with a new annex
Under the city's Design Excellence Program, Studio Joseph Architects planned an eastern annex with a loading dock, more backstage room, offices and accessible dressing rooms, plus new fire protection for the whole building. The work brought the hall up to Actors' Equity standards for the first time. After further delays, the city added $2.1 million in 2024 to complete it.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Snug Harbor Music HallWikipedia
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