North Brother Island Light
Address:
View from Randalls Island
Category: Lighthouses
Location: South side of North Brother Island.
Built: 1869
Owner: NYC Parks & Recreation
Current Use: Harbor Heron sanctuary
Description: The light served as a guide across the Hell Gate on the Bay of Brothers beginning in 1869 until 1953, when it was replaced by a skeletal tower. The tower has since been razed. North Brother Island, now a wading bird rookery, was once the forced home to Typhoid Mary at Riverside Hospital. Brother Island was the site of the greatest maritime disaster in New York City history, when on June 15, 1904 the excursion boat General Slocum was consumed by fire and lost 1000 lives on its shore.
The fog bell once used at the station is displayed at the NYPD's Harbor Unit at College Point where it memorializes officers who lost their lives in the line of duty.
