Blackwell Island Light
- Architect
- James Renwick Jr.
- Year
- 1872
- Style
- Gothic Revival
- City
- Manhattan, NY
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Blackwell Island Light, now known as the Roosevelt Island Lighthouse, is a stone lighthouse built by the government of New York City in 1872, standing within Lighthouse Park at the northern tip of Roosevelt Island in the East River.
the building
Island setting. The island, purchased by the city government in 1828, once held a penitentiary, almshouse, city hospital, the New York Lunatic Asylum, and the Smallpox Hospital, several designed by the lighthouse's own architect.
Construction legends. Legends surrounding the lighthouse's construction associate it with two names, John McCarthy and Thomas Maxey.
the style
The lighthouse is built in the Gothic Revival style, the same idiom its architect used at grander scale elsewhere in the city.
More on Gothic Revivalthe architect
James Renwick Jr., a major 19th-century American architect who also designed St. Patrick's Cathedral, served as supervising architect for the lighthouse and several other buildings the Charities and Correction Board built on the island.
significance
The lighthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 16, 1972, and was designated a New York City Landmark on March 23, 1976; it is also listed on the New York State Register of Historic Places.
nearby
- Gracie Mansion
- The Octagon
- 20 East End Avenue
- Parsonage of the Church of the Holy Trinity
- Yorkville Bank Building
- New York Public Library, Yorkville Branch