The Lost Lighthouses of New York Harbor 

Join historian, librarian and sailor Andrew Wilson at the Museum for an evening lecture regarding the vanished lighthouses and aids to navigation that made the old port of New York the greatest in the world. Mr. Wilson's talk will include underwater bells, the original Robbins Reef Light, lightships at Governor's 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..

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, Governor's 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.

The Bergen Point Lighthouse, New Jersey 

Tickets are $10 for guests and $5 for Museum members.