The Fire Island Light is a visible landmark on the Great South Bay, in southern Suffolk County, New York on the western end of Fire Island, a barrier island off the southern coast of Long Island. The Lighthouse is located within Fire Island National Seashore and just to the east of Robert Moses State Park. It is part of the Fire Island Light Station which contains the Light, Keepers Quarters, Lens Building containing the original First Order Fresnel Lens, and a boat house.
The current lighthouse is a 180-foot (55 m) Stone tower that began operation in 1858 to replace the 74-foot (23 m) tower originally built in 1826. The United States Coast Guard decommissioned the light in 1974. In 1982 the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society (FILPS) was formed to preserve the lighthouse. FILPS raised over $1.2 million to restore the tower and light. On May 25, 1986 the United States Coast Guard returned the Fire Island Lighthouse to an active aid to navigation. On February 22, 2006, the light became a private aid to navigation. It continues to be on the nautical charts, but is operated and maintained by the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society and not the USCG. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1981 and a boundary increase for the national historic district occurred in 2010.
It is listed as Fire Island Light, number 695, in the USCG light lists.
When the lighthouse was built it was on the edge of Fire Island Inlet and marked the western end of Fire Island. However Fire Island has extended itself through accumulating sand so that the lighthouse is now nearly six miles from the western end of the island at Democrat Point.
The Archives Center at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History has a collection (#1055) of souvenir postcards of lighthouses and has digitized 272 of these and made them available online. These include postcards of Fire Island Light with links to customized nautical charts provided by National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
The lighthouse was featured in the 2002 sci-fi action comedy Men in Black II. It was also featured in the 2008 romantic comedy What Happens in Vegas.
Read more about Fire Island Light: 150 Anniversary, Access
Famous quotes containing the words fire, island and/or light:
“a man sleeps where fire leapt down and she learns through his arm
That other sun, the jealous coursing of the unrivalled blood.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“An island always pleases my imagination, even the smallest, as a small continent and integral portion of the globe. I have a fancy for building my hut on one. Even a bare, grassy isle, which I can see entirely over at a glance, has some undefined and mysterious charm for me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For now the moon with friendless light carouses
On hill and housetop, street and marketplace,
Men will plunge, mile after mile of men,
To crush this lucent madness of the face....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)