The Lighthouse

Above the waters of the East River at the northernmost stretch of Roosevelt Island, shines the fifty foot high Lighthouse. It was built in 1872 by inmates of the penitentiary with stone extracted from the island.

The Lighthouse was designed by James Renwick, Jr., architect of the Smallpox Hospital and the Smithsonian Institute. The East River channel's huge granite boulders made it very treacherous to navigate so the lighthouse was commissioned as part of a solution for New York City's shipping ports along with an Army Corps of Engineers project to demolish and implode boulders and widen and deepen the channel. Lighthouse Park is now a lovely fishing and barbecue destination.