The Titanic Memorial Lighthouse, erected at the corner of Fulton and Water Street, is a memorial dedicated to honor RMS Titanic’s passengers, officers, and crew who perished when the ship sank after collision with an iceberg on April 14, 1912.
It was originally erected on the roof of the Seamen’s Church Institute (SCI), 240 feet above sea level, at the corner of South Street and Coenties Slip (now Vietnam Veterans Plaza), on April 15, 1913.
Building this memorial was a nationwide effort led by Seamen’s Church as people banded together in solidarity after the loss of over 1,500 on board the ocean liner.
The group present at the cornerstone-laying ceremony of 25 South Street decided to commemorate the heroism displayed during the tragedy and remember those who lost their lives by constructing a tower on top of the building by public subscription.
Everyone donated to the cause: wealthy socialites like Grace Vanderbilt, wife of Cornelius Vanderbilt, wrote checks and schoolchildren donated pennies and nickels.
One year to the day after RMS Titanic’s sinking, the memorial was dedicated, 13 stories above busy South Street, in front of a crowd of nearly 300 people.
Designed by Warren & Wetmore (the architects of Grand Central Terminal), its signature time ball mechanism, which dropped every day at 12-noon, was activated by a telegraphic signal from the Naval Observatory near Lincoln Memorial Arlington, Virginia, and was used by local residents and workers in Lower Manhattan to set their watches.
The time ball consisted of a bronze frame, four feet across, covered with canvas that was painted black for maximum visibility, and it was put into operation November 1, 1913.
The structure remained in its original location until 1968. After 55 years of service, SCI moved its headquarters to 15 State Street and the old building, along with the Lighthouse, was set to be demolished.
A group of concerned preservationists persuaded the demolition company to donate the lighthouse to New York City’s South Street Seaport Museum.
In a letter to the company, Museum founding president Peter Stanford wrote:
“The Lighthouse atop the building was dedicated many years ago, when new, to the victims of the Titanic disaster. We believe this monument should not be doomed as part of the obsolete building to which it happens to be attached. The tragedy of the Titanic, and its lessons to history, are not less real today than in 1912… It would dishonor the memory of the victims by destroying the monument within the lifetimes of those who remember.”
The top of the tower was donated to the Seaport Museum by the Kaiser-Nelson Steel and Salvage Corporation in July of 1968.
In May 1976 it was erected in its current location, now Vietnam Veterans Plaza at the intersection of Fulton and Pearl streets, at the entrance of the South Street Seaport Historic District.
Restoration Complete
The Seaport Museum and preservation architects Jan Hird Pokorny Associates have recently completed a more than three-year restoration of the Titanic Memorial Lighthouse.
The project included restoration and replacement of structural steel members, glass windows, and copper components, along with upgrades to the electrical system and hoist mechanism.
They also created a new time ball, cast from the existing one, which allows the Museum to preserve the original while protecting it from the elements for years to come. (Read about the history of time balls in New York State.)
The restoration was guided by the Department of Interior’s “Standards for the Rehabilitation of Historic Structures” and guidelines established by the US International Council on Monuments and Sites’s International Scientific Committee on the Analysis and Restoration of Structures of Architectural Heritage.
Read more about New York State’s Lighthouses.
Illustrations, from above: The restored Titanic Memorial Lighthouse at South Street Seaport Museum, 2026; the original on Seamen’s Church Institute at the corner of South Street and Coenties Slip, ca. 1915; and again in ca. 1968.
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