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EXPLORATIONS - South Street Seaport Museum Offers a Living L

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EXPLORATIONS - South Street Seaport1 Museum Offers a Living Link With the Past
By Paul Thompson

Broadcast: Wednesday, December 14, 2005

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

 
The Peking, one the ships at the South Street Seaport Museum
This is Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Shirley Griffith with the VOA Special English program EXPLORATIONS. Today we take you to visit another unusual museum in New York City, the South Street Seaport.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

On September Second, sixteen-oh-nine, British Captain Henry Hudson was sailing along the east coast of North America. He ordered his ship into the opening of a wide river. Mister2 Hudson was working for the Dutch East India Company. He was looking for a way across North America from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. What he found was one of the best natural ports in North America.

Less than sixteen years later, settlers supported by the new Dutch West India Company arrived near the opening of the same river, now called the Hudson River. They had come to stay. They began building homes on the southern end of an island called Manhattan. They also began building a port. Forty years later, the Dutch gave up their claim to the area to the British.

VOICE TWO:

The new British rulers named the area after James, the Duke of York. The area became New York. The British added to the small port. The area began to grow quickly. By the year seventeen forty-seven the people of the little port owned ninety-nine ships.

Less than twenty years later there were more than four hundred ships in the port. The little city continued to grow very quickly. Today, New York is the largest city in the United States and one of the largest in the world.

VOICE ONE:

Early maps of Manhattan show a street across the southern end of Manhattan Island. The settlers built a wall there as protection. They named it Wall Street. Another was named Water Street. A third street was called Pearl3. The street closest to the water was named South Street.

Wall Street now is known around the world as the financial center of the United States. South Street, Water Street and Pearl Street are still there, too. It is within this area of Manhattan that some of the first European settlers tried to develop businesses in North America. Today it is the home of the South Street Seaport Museum.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

If you say the word "museum" most people think of a large building that holds objects that are important to history. The South Street Seaport Museum has such a building, but it includes much more. The Museum is a group of buildings, streets, homes, businesses and eating places. It also is a dock4 area for several ships that once sailed the oceans of the world. The Museum is a continuing work that will not be completed for many years.

A visit to the South Street Seaport Museum should start at the corner of South Street and Fulton Street. On this corner, you can see much of Fulton Street. If you look across South Street you can see two huge sailing ships, the Peking and the Wavertree. A little more than a hundred years ago, goods were carried around the world by thousands of huge ships powered by wind in their sails. Today there are only a few such ships, including the two that belong to the Seaport Museum.

VOICE ONE:

The South Street Seaport Museum used to share an area with the Fulton Fish Market, one of the largest markets of its kind in the world. For more than one hundred eighty years, fresh fish from the market were bought, sold and transported to eating places all over the United States. In November, two thousand five, the Fulton Fish Market moved from the South Street Seaport. The fish market is now in a new, modern structure in the Bronx area of New York.

VOICE TWO:

Most visitors to the South Street Seaport Museum come to see the ships. The Peking is a huge sailing ship. It is one of the largest sailing ships left from a time when these were the only ships on the seas. It is more than one hundred two meters long. It has four tall wood masts6 that hold up its many cloth sails.

The Peking looks very new. It is not. In fact, it is ninety years old. It was made at the shipbuilding company of Blohm and Voss in Germany in nineteen eleven. It took workers at the South Street Seaport Museum twelve years of very hard work to make the ship look new.

VOICE ONE:

Next to the Peking is the Wavertree. It is almost as large. The Wavertree was built in the British port of Southampton. It was built for the R.W. Leyland and Company of Liverpool.

The Leyland Company used it for many years to carry goods and some passengers from Britain to the United States. It also carried goods to India, Australia, and South America.

A severe storm almost sank the Wavertree in nineteen ten near the coast of Cape7 Horn, at the end of South America. The ship was kept in that area and used for storage for many years.

Officials of the South Street Museum found the Wavertree in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in nineteen sixty-six. A year later, Museum officials decided8 to buy the old ship and take it to New York.

VOICE TWO:

Workers began rebuilding the huge ship in nineteen seventy. The work continues today. Progress is extremely slow because of the cost and the amount of work needed to rebuild a ship the size of the Wavertree. For example, workers had to re-build the three, tall wooden masts that hold the ship's sails. Each mast5 had to be built specially9 for the Wavertree.

The work is extremely hard. It can also be very dangerous. People who work on the masts often work many meters above the deck10 of the ship.

VOICE ONE:

Sal Polisi is an artist. All of his unusual art is cut out of wood. Mister Polisi is a wood carver. He makes signs for the South Street Sea Port Museum. He also makes woodcarvings for the Wavertree and the Peking.

Sailing ships like the Wavertree had a large woodcarving called a figurehead on the very front of the ship. A figurehead helped identify a ship. It could be a carving11 of an animal or a human or perhaps a bird. The Wavertree's figurehead is a woman.

Sal Polisi used a very small and very old photograph of the Wavertree to reproduce12 the figurehead. It took several years to complete the huge statue of the woman. It weighs more than three hundred sixty kilograms.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

The South Street Seaport Museum also repairs the many old buildings that are part of the museum. The museum officials try to make them look as they did hundreds of years ago.

One good example of this kind of repair work is the museum's Bowne and Company Stationers. This building was home to a company of that name more than one hundred years ago. Bowne Stationers printed paper documents such as tickets, timetables of trains and boats, and business papers. The museum repaired the building and printing now continues in it.

VOICE ONE:

Today, computers control most printing. At the museum's Bowne and Company printing shop, all of the printing is done the same way it was done a hundred or more years ago. The workers use hand operated machinery13 that produces specially printed materials. Visitors can have the museum shop print something just for them.

A woman and man who are about to get married can get the Bowne and Company Stationers to print their wedding announcements. The little shop produces unusual and beautiful work.

VOICE TWO:

Officials of the South Street Seaport Museum are busy repairing a large group of buildings called Schermerhorn Row. A family with that name first owned the buildings more than two hundred years ago. The buildings will be the home of a museum show called "World Port New York."

"World Port New York" will have objects that belonged to the first humans that lived in the area. It will show the early development of the area by the first settlers.

The new part of the museum will show drawings and pictures of the South Street buildings and ship docking14 area, as they looked more than one hundred years ago. It will show how the little port helped the great city of New York develop into an important center of world trade.

VOICE ONE:

The oldest buildings of the new "World Port New York" show have a long and interesting history. The oldest was built in seventeen twenty-six. Many people have lived in some of the buildings. Other buildings have sheltered businesses, hotels and eating places. They have been used to store goods brought by ships from all over the world.

The old buildings, like the rest of the South Street Seaport Museum, will continue into the future as a living link with the past.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

This Special English program was written by Paul Thompson. Our director was Caty Weaver15. Our studio engineer was Keith Holmes. This is Shirley Griffith.

VOICE ONE:

And this is Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another EXPLORATIONS program on the Voice of America.


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 seaport rZ3xB     
n.海港,港口,港市
参考例句:
  • Ostend is the most important seaport in Belgium.奥斯坦德是比利时最重要的海港。
  • A seaport where ships can take on supplies of coal.轮船能够补充煤炭的海港。
2 mister rnQzwB     
n.(略作Mr.全称很少用于书面)先生
参考例句:
  • Mister Smith is my good friend.史密斯先生是我的好朋友。
  • He styled himself " Mister Clean ".他自称是“清廉先生”。
3 pearl 63Zzp     
n.珍珠,珍珠母
参考例句:
  • He bought his girlfriend a pearl necklace.他给他女朋友买了一条珍珠项链。
  • The crane and the mother-of-pearl fight to death.鹬蚌相争。
4 dock GsQx9     
n.码头;被告席;vt.使(船)进港;扣;vi.进港
参考例句:
  • We took the children to the dock to see the ships.我们带孩子们到码头去看轮船。
  • The corrupt official stood in the dock.那贪官站在被告席上。
5 mast TBqx1     
n.船桅,桅杆,旗杆,天线杆
参考例句:
  • Flags are flying at half-mast across China.全中国将半旗。
  • The sails were flapping against the mast.帆拍打着桅杆。
6 masts 057ed762a50e5883b0338ebfdd2d903f     
船桅( mast的名词复数 ); 桅杆; 旗杆; 天线塔
参考例句:
  • Her masts leveled with the spires of churches. 船的桅杆和教堂的塔尖一样高。
  • First the sails and then the masts went. 先是帆坏了,随后桅杆也断了。
7 cape ITEy6     
n.海角,岬;披肩,短披风
参考例句:
  • I long for a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.我渴望到好望角去旅行。
  • She was wearing a cape over her dress.她在外套上披着一件披肩。
8 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
9 specially Hviwq     
adv.特定地;特殊地;明确地
参考例句:
  • They are specially packaged so that they stack easily.它们经过特别包装以便于堆放。
  • The machine was designed specially for demolishing old buildings.这种机器是专为拆毁旧楼房而设计的。
10 deck bnIzQ     
n.甲板;公共汽车一层的车厢;纸牌;vt.装饰
参考例句:
  • Let's have a walk round the deck.我们去甲板上散步吧。
  • The sea wind swept over the deck.海风席卷过甲板。
11 carving 5wezxw     
n.雕刻品,雕花
参考例句:
  • All the furniture in the room had much carving.房间里所有的家具上都有许多雕刻。
  • He acquired the craft of wood carving in his native town.他在老家学会了木雕手艺。
12 reproduce yVkxZ     
v.生育,繁殖,复制,重做
参考例句:
  • The machine can reproduce a key in two minutes.这机器能在两分钟内复制一把钥匙。
  • The picture will reproduce well.这照片会印得很清楚。
13 machinery CAdxb     
n.(总称)机械,机器;机构
参考例句:
  • Has the machinery been put up ready for the broadcast?广播器材安装完毕了吗?
  • Machinery ought to be well maintained all the time.机器应该随时注意维护。
14 docking 1f09edca718cff07e4fc0d8ffa8f3303     
n.扣工资
参考例句:
  • The tug eased into the narrow docking space. 拖船小心地驶入狭窄的码头停泊处。
  • Rendezvous and docking stood fourth in the list of objectives. 第四个目标是实现飞船的会合与对接。 来自英汉非文学 - 科学史
15 weaver LgWwd     
n.织布工;编织者
参考例句:
  • She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快,而且布的质量很好。
  • The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。

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