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City Island Nautical Museum

Museum · City Island, New York

A maritime museum in the former Public School 17 building at 190 Fordham Street, a two-story, five-bay brick building on a high basement with a shallow wooden entrance porch carrying Doric order columns, built in 1897 to a design by C. B. J. Snyder in Gothic, Neo-Georgian style. The museum opened in 1976 and is operated by the City Island Historical Society. Its own site describes permanent collection galleries, including the Community and Nautical Rooms, an exhibit on America's Cup winners, many of which were built on City Island, and holdings of maritime artifacts, photographs and navigational instruments spanning a century of boat building and sail making.

History

The building served as a school until 1975; a rear addition was added in 1930. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 27, 1984, reference number 84002065. The city sold it to the developer Haim Joseph in the 1980s for $500,000 for condominium conversion, after which the museum and a community center received a 99-year rent-free lease and reopened in 1995 after renovations. A fire allegedly set by vandals on July 13, 2007 damaged the building's façade.

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190 Fordham Street, Bronx, NY 10464

Official website

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