| Edification value |  |
|---|---|
| Entertainment value |  |
| Should you go? | |
| Time spent | 47 minutes |
| Best thing I saw or learned | The largest Fresnel lens in the U.S. was installed at Makapu’u Point Lighthouse on Oahu in Hawai’i in 1909. It was made in France and was featured at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. |
The National Lighthouse Museum is a museum in its infancy. Located a short stroll from the ferry terminal in St. George, Staten Island, the museum describes the history, technology, and design of lighthouses. Continue reading “National Lighthouse Museum”
The building’s stained glass is a treasure of nautical and celestial themes.
This incredible 1872 punch bowl and goblets, 36 pieces and 800 ounces worth (that’s 50 pounds! 22.68kg!) of sterling silver. A gift to Isaac Newton Marks, president of the New Orleans Fireman’s Charitable Association. It’s hard to see in the picture but the stem of each goblet is a fire fighter.
The Fire Museum is like the attic of the New York City Fire Department. It’s where all the old interesting stuff is, and exploring it is very much like sifting through a collection of fire-related artifacts that someone at some point considered worth keeping. 
In addition to coins, the Numismatic Society has some paper money, including this 1855 Bank of NY note. It’s been a while since I heard the phrase “queer as a three dollar bill” but I never thought I’d actually see one.
The American Numismatic Society is the center for all things related to the world of coins and coin collecting. Their offices in Tribeca are literally a vault, with a heavily secured air lock-style entry way. There’s a noticeable difference in air pressure when you go in, too. 
The New York Public Library’s branch at Lincoln Center is easy to overlook, tucked in between the Met and the Vivian Beaumont Theater. It puts on a number of free exhibitions throughout the year, and has a fairly large space for doing so. I saw a great show celebrating the 45th anniversary of Sesame Street there a few years back. 
If you wake up one day and want to be an interior designer, there are worse places you could learn your new trade than the New York School of Interior Design. Occupying a midtown building that runs through the entire block, the school has a gallery that’s open to the public.
The Dyckman Farmhouse is the least fancy historic home I’ve been to so far on this project. Owned by the Dyckman family, who had a large farm at the northern tip of Manhattan, the house is reckoned to have been built around 1783, so it’s also the oldest historic house I’ve been to yet.
It’s totally different from the fancy, symmetrical, Federal style of the other historic houses I’ve seen so far. Rather it is very basic, 2 stories plus a cellar, simple, small, cozy, and a little threadbare. And like all old houses, seemingly quite crowded and uncomfortable back in the day.
apartment buildings, cars, and buses and putting in rolling fields and outbuildings is hard. There’s a tiny plot of green in back and on the sides of the house, with a reconstructed Hessian hut, but it barely begins to evoke the original agrarian setting.
The Elevateds were built in the late 1890s and much of the signage was done in beautiful glass with floral decorations. I think of them as just big and hulking, but they must have been rather beautiful as well.
New York’s main Transit Museum is in Brooklyn, and it is very worth visiting. When they restored Grand Central in the early 2000s, they opened a tiny branch (or “gallery annex”) of the museum there. I’m tempted to say skip it — the exhibit space is very small, it’s more gift shop than museum, and there’s so much else to see at Grand Central.
This year, the transit system is celebrating the construction of the new Second Avenue Subway. In a brilliant bit of counter-programming, the current show at the Transit Museum’s GCT branch is about a bit of deconstructing, showing photos of the dismantling of the Third Avenue Elevated in 1955.
Halls of fame today are two-a-penny. Everyone and everything from minor league lacrosse to rock n roll has a hall of fame. But it wasn’t always that way. There had to be, at some point, a first one.