Titanic Memorial

The Titanic Memorial lighthouse has stood at the entrance to the South Street Seaport since 1976. Before it moved to its current home, the memorial was erected on top of the Seamen’s Church Institute in 1913 after the Unsinkable Molly Brown insisted that a monument to those lost in the Titanic be erected.

Margaret Brown, better known as Molly, was as stubborn after coming back to dry land as she was during her alleged rescue of fellow passengers during the Titanic’s sinking. Always larger than life, Brown insisted that a 60-foot-high lighthouse be erected in Lower Manhattan. When it was first built, just a year after the Titanic sank, a time ball was installed above the lighthouse, and dropped at noon every day in remembrance of those who perished.

After the ball ceased to keep time in 1967, the lighthouse was moved off the roof of the Seamen’s Church Institute and became a part of the South Street Seaport Museum at the corner of Fulton and Pearl. As conspicuous as Molly Brown would have wanted it, the monument greets visitors to the Seaport with a reminder of the tragedy of April 15, 1912.