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01.22.10
The Little Red Lighthouse
Plus: the skint |
There are two stories of The Little Red Lighthouse.
The first is the book called The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge by Hildegarde Swift and Lynd Ward, a children's favorite since 1942.
The other is the one of the actual lighthouse. The 40-foot structure at 178th Street and the Hudson was built in 1880 and served Sandy Hook, NJ before it was moved to its site in Ft. Washington Park in 1921. After the George Washington Bridge was built, complete with beacon, the LRL became something of a relic and was decommissioned in 1947.
When the City was going to demolish it for scrap, however, there was an outcry and it became clear that it was a beloved relic. It was thus turned over to the city's Parks Department, which promptly let the last lighthouse on the island fall apart.
Comptroller Harrison Golden got the city to commit money to restoring both the lighthouse and the park in 1982. In 2007, the Benjamin Moore company donated $45,000 to the landmark, which paid for repairs, Plexiglas panes in the lantern, and a new coat of red paint.
You can visit the exterior of the lighthouse any time, or visit the inside, too, when the Urban Park Rangers give a tour. Call 212.304.2365 for details.
    
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skint - adj. british slang (1930-35)
lacking funds, broke, bust, stone-broke, impecunious
Around town this weekend, courtesy of the skint: a daily listing of free and cheap things to buy, see, do and eat in New York.
 artist joseph cavalieri discusses his stained-glass panels depicting the simpsons characters in scenes of murder, death and dying. think coffee (bleecker st), free. [sat 10am, free]
moma's yearlong retrospective of filmmaker frederick wiseman ('the paris opera ballet') continues with his seminal doc. 'high school' (1968). [sat 7:30pm, $10]
 dramatic and eerie singer/songwriter heather christian performs songs from her upcoming album @ joe's pub, [sat 11:30pm, $12]
new bar henry bistro offers up $1 oysters as a late night aphrodisiac [sun-thurs 11pm-closing]
it's the last weekend to enjoy skating at the pond at bryant park, nyc's only free-admission ice rink [fri-sun, $12 skate rental]
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