Parks Department Offers Tour Of Uptown's Little Red Lighthouse

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS-INWOOD, NY — One of Upper Manhattan's unique landmarks will be open to the public, a rare occurrence, for a weekend tour run by the city Parks Department's urban rangers.

A tour of the Little Red Lighthouse will be held Saturday, July 27 from 1-2:30 p.m., according to the Parks Department website. The department's urban park rangers will let people into the structure and speak about the history of Manhattan's only remaining lighthouse.

The lighthouse, originally called the Jeffrey's Hook Lighthouse, was built in 1880 and moved to its current location in Riverside Park near the George Washington Bridge in the 1920s. The historic landmark is featured in the 1942 children's book "The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge."

Popularity of the book led to the preservation of the lighthouse when the United States Coast Guard proposed its demolition in the 1950s. The Coast Guard had decommissioned the lighthouse after it was made obsolete by the George Washington Bridge.

The structure is now under the jurisdiction of the Parks Department, which generally keeps it closed off to the public. The lighthouse has been named to the National Register of Historic Places and is a designated city landmark.

Admission to Saturday's tour will be limited and offered on a first-come-first-serve basis.