As long as people have been visiting the Twin Lights, they have also heard the siren song of the nearby beaches. For more than 150 years, bathers have frolicked in the surf of the Atlantic or relaxed in the calmer waters of Sandy Hook Bay. The first regular boat service to this area from points north began in 1832. Train service followed after the Civil War. The area began to flourish as a destination for beachgoers after a permanent bridge over the Navesink was completed in 1872.
Highland Beach truly took off in the late 1880s, after a portion of Sandy Hook was developed and promoted for recreational use. This area—just across from the Twin Lights, was rechristened Highland Beach. Highland Beach became a mix of private homes, hotels, beach clubs and family-friendly amusement parks. Long piers accommodated the steamers that brought city dwellers from New York and Northern New Jersey in search of relief from the summer swelter.
The area’s draw as a resort began to wane in the 1930s, during the Great Depression. Wind, weather and neglect took its toll over the next 20 years. The discontinuation of train service after World War II cut into tourist traffic. Those who could travel by car began exploring shore areas to the south—a trip made possible by the opening of the Garden State Parkway. The beaches continued to be popular, of course, but as fewer day-trippers came, business focused more on the full-time (and summer rental) residents of Eastern Monmouth County.
Today, the beaches within view of the Twin Lights accommodate both area residents and daily or weekend visitors. This trend began in the 1960s and 1970s, when Sandy Hook transitioned from private and government hands to become what is now the Gateway National Recreation Area.
Tags: lighthouse Twin Light New Jersey NJ Twin Lights Lighthouse Monmouth County, NJ Travel historic historical
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22 Pendleton Place was officially recognized by the New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation in 1989. Built in 1855, this Gothic Revival style house is a fine example of Victorian Romanticism. The structure possesses a distinctive individuality, with its square, spire-topped tower, steeply pitched gables, pendant scrollwork, asymmetrically placed dormers, bay windows and oriel.
The house was once owned by W.S. Pendleton, a prominent local businessman who worked in real estate and owned a local ferry boat company. Pendleton, born in New York City in 1795, later became a pioneer lithographer in Boston
Pendleton moved back to New York in the 1840's. He bought other land in Staten Island as early as 1846, but it is not certain whether he ever lived at 22 Pendleton Place. He was involved with various businesses in Staten Island -- Mr. Shepherd's research indicates that Pendleton was also head of a ferry company.
In 1862 the magazine The Horticulturist published a sketch of a new, much bigger house on the Pendleton property, the giant stick-style residence now known as 1 Pendleton Place, designed by the architect Charles Duggin. The article describes it as ''erected for renting,'' one of a group of seven homes put up by Pendleton.
Pendleton leased the large, asymmetrical house to Thomas M. Rianhard, a Manhattan wholesale merchant who left a rowhouse at 49 West 14th Street to move to Staten Island.
By the 1860's Pendleton and two sons were living in one or more houses they built on Pendleton Place, but an 1878 deed shows William S. Pendleton living in Florida. He died the next year. Other Pendleton family members continued to live in houses on Pendleton Place, and the family rented or sold others as circumstances required -- in the 1870's they sold the Gothic-style house at 22 Pendleton Place to William P. Raynor, a Manhattan envelope manufacturer.
Apparently it was the Raynors who installed the elegant Romanesque-style chimney breast in 22 Pendleton Place, a rich and elegant brick and terra-cotta work with round arches and zigzag flame details. Around 1907 Willard Boyd, a mechanical engineer, bought the house and installed a sophisticated arts-and-crafts-style mantelpiece on the second floor, made of green tile and black iron.
But other than that the Pendletons' two biggest houses, 1 and 22 Pendleton Place, remained almost unaltered, unusual in a borough that saw regular visits from aluminum-siding and home-improvement salesmen. Now scattered among later, smaller houses, three Pendleton houses are still evident: the two at 1 and 22 Pendleton Place, and one at 178 Franklin Avenue nearby.
Tags: Staten Island historic historical Landmark landscape W.S. Pendleton House Gothic Revival style House home SI houses Pendleton 1800's William P. Raynor still life photography.
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known as the Tear of Grief and the Tear Drop Memorial) is a 10 story sculpture by Zurab Tsereteli that was given to the United States as an official gift of the Russian government as a memorial to the victims of the September 11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. It stands at the end of the former MOTBY in Bayonne, New Jersey and was dedicated on September 11, 2006 in a ceremony attended by former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin.
The sculpture is in the form of a 100-foot (30 m) tower made of steel and coated in bronze, split with a jagged opening through the middle. Inside the opening hangs a large stainless-steel teardrop, 40 feet (12 m) high, in memory of those whose lives were lost during terrorist attacks in the United States. The eleven sides of the monument's base bear granite name plates, on which are etched the names of those that died in the September 11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing
It was initially given to the local government of Jersey City, but was rejected. It was then relocated to its present placement in Bayonne. In August 2010 the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced it had plans to build a container facility on the location and the monument would most likely have to be moved. However these plans have not been confirmed by the Port Authority. Robert "Captain Bob" Terzi, a Bayonne taxi driver started an online petition to prevent the relocation.
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The Jefferson Market Branch, New York Public Library, once known as the Jefferson Market Courthouse, is located at 425 Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue), on the southwest corner of West 10th Street, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, on a triangular plot formed by Greenwich Avenue and West 10th Street. It was originally built as the Third Judicial District Courthouse from 1874 to 1877, and was designed by architect Frederick Clarke Withers of the firm of Vaux and Withers.
Faced with demolition in 1958, public outcry led to its reuse as a branch of the New York Public Library. The building is now part of the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission's Greenwich Village Historic District, created in 1969. The AIA Guide to New York City calls the building "A mock Neuschwansteinian assemblage ... of leaded glass, steeply sloping roofs, gables, pinnacles, Venetian Gothic embellishments, and an intricate tower and clock; one of the City's most remarkable buildings
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Sandy Island Beach State Park is a New York State park on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario. Its highlight is a 1,500-foot (460 m) natural sandy beach. The park is near the southern end of a notable 17-mile (27 km) length of sandy shoreline, coastal dunes, and wetlands (the Eastern Lake Ontario Dunes and Wetlands); a 1959 study noted that "The eastern end of Lake Ontario contains not only the finest beaches on the entire lake, but also the finest wildlife habitat."
The park's facilities include several lake swimming areas with lifeguards (in season), changing rooms and restrooms, and a concession stand; a parking fee is charged through the summer season. The park recorded averages about 30,000 recorded visits each season. The park's area is 13 acres (5.3 ha), which makes it the smallest New York State Park. It is immediately adjacent to the 120-acre (49 ha) Sandy Island Beach Unique Area, which is a conservation area administered as a New York State Forest. The Unique Area incorporates several additional acres of land near the Park as well as most of the southern end of North Sandy Pond. The State Park and the Unique Area are in the Town of Richland in Oswego County.
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