"CAUTION!" this slide presentation will take a couple of minutes to load if you have 56k or less BUT the slides are well worth the wait!

NOTE: The following pictures were taken by Harvey Weinstein of Brooklyn, New York who was one of the eye whiteness' to the sinking of Lightship 84.

Here are the comments he sent to us in an email about that day.

" I noticed your story about Lightship #84 which rests on the murky bottom in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

I was at the pier that day and have just located a set of photos I'd taken of that fateful event.
There were a few of us there that day working on what was to be an Ill-Fated Trolley Project.

 I noticed the Lightship was resting a little deeper toward the keel than usual and realized what was happening.
I got my camera and some others looked for someone to contact, but  we couldn't find the owner.

 Anyway, we finally sat down with a Six-Pack and I clicked away as  she slowly did what nobody could stop.
 

Oh, and I don't care what anyone says.. it did Not sink with a simple Pfffft.  The poor thing Groaned and Boomed, but it did finish off with a Very Loud Pfffffft as the last of the air was blown from the bow. "

NOTE: I am sure these slides will be as sickening to you as they were to me as a former Lightship Sailor. One of the prime objectives as an Association is the, "preservation of lightships."

The sinking of this lightship is the responsibility of one man who, was the curator for the museum the year the lightship sunk, and one origination, the Intrepid Seaport Museum in New York City . 

There is the story. The lightship was Decommissioned Oct 26, 1965; donated Aug 7, 1968 then
used by Harry Lundeburg School, Seafarers Int'l Union, Piney Point MD; named Big Red; 1987 sold and towed to Yonkers NY to be used as floating restaurant. Original compartmentation and interior no longer intact.

When that project fell through the ship wound up tied up under a bridge and abandoned. The then, curator for the museum had it towed to his facility for repair and planned eventual display at the museum. Three years went by and nothing was done.

Sometime in the fourth year a newer lightship became available in MUCH better shape. LV 84 became a throw-away item.

The curator was well versed in International Law and knew that if the ship was towed to someone else's dock and abandoned it would become someone else's problem, I.E. that dock owners. That is exactly what he did. He had a friend of his tow the lightship to the abandoned Imelda  DeMarco's sugar refinery dock in Brooklyn N.Y.

Here then, is the pictorial history of the final sinking of lightship LV 84 as seen through the lens of camera man Harvey Weinstein.

NOTE: The pictures will appear slowly the first time then repeat about 5 seconds apart as the frames change. You will be able to see the pictures twice after the initial loading.

The following pictures are Owned by Stephen Edelstein, a Friend of The National Lightship-Trust Foundation.

The pictures were taken in the summer of 2003 shortly before his pictures, and story was published in the New York Times .

Copyright © 2003  United States Coast Guard Lightship Sailors Association INC. All rights reserved. Copyrights also protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998
Revised: 10/23/06.