In 1914 Charles Gilbert Hine described the view from Grimes Hill, Staten Island:
“At night there are within view from here eight lighthouses and two light-ships-the Highland light, the two lights on Sandy Hook, Romer Shoal light, West Bank light, the red flash of Norton’s Point at the west end of Coney Island, and toward the north Robbins Reef light and the double red light on Castle William, Governors Island; the Ambrose Channel light-ship twenty miles away, a flashing white light on the horizon above the western point of Coney Island, and the Scotland lightship, one steady white light, only to be seen on exceptionally clear nights. Before the land held so many electric lights it was possible to catch the glow from the Fire Island light, forty miles distant, but in these days the competition is too keen. The view from this hill at night is one of the wonders of the world; to see the moon rise from the ocean above the summer lights of Coney Island is a liberal education in art.”
Join historian, librarian and sailor Andrew Wilson for an armchair cruise around the harbor visiting the vanished lighthouses and aids to navigation that made the old port of New York the greatest in the world.
Stops on the tour will include underwater bells, the original Robbins Reef Light, lightships at Governors Island and Sandy Hook, the lights of Newark Bay, the world’s largest gun at Romer Shoals, the Bergen Point Light by the Bayonne Bridge, the time balls atop Manhattan skyscrapers (they gave birth to the New Year’s Eve ball drop tradition at Times Square), the pirates of the Corner Stake Light in the Arthur Kill and many more.
When
Thursday, April 4, 2019 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
Where
National Lighthouse Museum
200 The Promenade at Lighthouse Point
Staten Island, NY 10301
National Lighthouse Museum
718-390-0040
|
|
