A Dream of Tall Ships: How New Yorkers Came Together to Save the City's Sailing-Ship Waterfront It's Here!
The long-awaited memoir by National Maritime Historical Society and South Street Seaport Museum legends Peter and Norma Stanford has just been released.
A Dream of
Tall Ships
Join Peter and Norma as they retrace their adventure along the cobblestone streets of Lower Manhattan, where they toiled to make their dream a reality-a dream to restore the maritime vitality to the once famous "Street of Ships."
It was the 1960s, and the two New Yorkers had become entranced by the old brick buildings of the Fulton Fish Market neighborhood, but they were also keenly aware of the rush of new office building construction in Lower Manhattan taking place at the time. The Stanfords started a movement to save the old buildings as a historic district and breathe new life into the waterfront neighborhood in which, a century before, had been a bustling seaport, with the bows of great sailing ships overhanging streets crowded with merchants, sailors, fishermen, chandlers, dockworkers, barkeeps, sailmakers, and counting house clerks. In 1966 the Stanfords and allies formed the Friends of South Street, which in 1967 incorporated the South Street Seaport Museum. You can read what happened next in this close-up, vivid tale of how the Seaport gained the largest museum membership in America, won the first Landmarks battle in New York, and brought the great sailing ships back to South Street.
Along the way, you'll meet Cape Hom sailorman Alan Villiers, urban leader Joan K. Davidson, philanthropist Brooke Astor, fish market garbage man Joe Cantalupo, and, of course, the ordinary New Yorkers who came together to breathe new life and purpose into the Seaport from which the modem city grew. A Dream of Tall Ships: How New Yorkers Came Together to Save the City's SailingShip Waterfront by Peter and Norma Stanford (Sea History Press, National Maritime Historical Society, Peekskill, NY, 2013, 596 pages with 52 illustrations, ISBN 978-0930248-17-8). You can order A Dream of Tall Ships through the NMHS Ship's Store online at www.seahistory.org or by calling NMHS headquarters at 1-800-221-NMHS (6647); email merchandise@seahistory.org. ($34.95, plus $6.95 s/h in the US) 50
SEA HISTORY 146, SPRING 2014