Montauk Point Lighthouse

ANNUAL REPORT

Dear Members, Friends and Visitors,

In addition to business as usual at the Light, 2007 is a year of planning & preparation. The E. Virgil and Elaine Wingate Conway Visitors Center, our gift shop and Where Land Meets Sea: Exploring History through the Richard T. Gilmartin Galleries, have all been a wonderful addition to our visitors and museum experience..

The Lighthouse Committee is chaired by Elizabeth L. White, President of the Montauk Historical Society. Elizabeth White also serves as Treasurer, other members include Robert Schorr, Greg Donohoue, Eleanor Ehrhardt, Joe Gaviola, Dick White, Dave Webb, Bill Wilkinson, and Ed Michels.

The Montauk Point Lighthouse Museum Committee of The Montauk Historical Society (non-profit 501 C-3) is dedicated to the protection, preservation, educational development and promotion of this national historic site. Through programs, exhibits, publications and special events the story of this site will be conveyed to the public. Also in keeping with reporting requirements, we provide our IRS Form 990 when requested for inspection.

The mission of any non-profit includes the basic responsibility of balancing budgets, and maintaining property and structures. The historic nature of our buildings in combination with the strong force of nature at The Point, require the stewards of this Light to be particularly vigilant. It also requires substantial funding, which is one of the reasons that The E. Virgil and Elaine Wingate Conway Visitors Center was designed and built. The donors intended that this handsome new building will help increase the bottom line. E. Virgil and Elaine Wingate Conway are especially good friends of the Lighthouse and particularly generous philanthropists. Named after their devotion to, support of, and vision for the Lighthouse, the E.Virgil and Elaine Wingate Conway Visitors Center was made possible through their very generous gifts and museum admission fees. We are grateful for the Conway’s major support and their long-standing responsiveness to the Lighthouse’s needs. This center houses the gift shop, public restrooms and an open-air patio. The building also provides welcome and plentiful basement storage for gift shop operations.

The old gift shop rooms were transformed into permanent exhibition space that houses Where Land Meets Sea: Exploring Montauk History through the Richard T. Gilmartin Galleries. The exhibit, Where Land Meets Sea…is an interactive with focus on four themes: First People: The Montauketts; Gifts of the Sea: Commercial and Sport Fishing; Taken from the Sea: Shipwrecks; and Fish Boards and Lollipop Boxes: Land Use. The exhibit was funded in part, through initial seed money from Richard T. Gilmartin’s children and their families: Tim and Nancy Gilmartin and Barbara and Jim Sullivan. We are grateful when members of our community and people across the nation help to support the Montauk Point Lighthouse.

In closing, we chose this 1934 poem by Douglas Malloch, which was printed in the San Francisco Chronicle:

The Lighthouse

It knows no lands, no flags, no kings,

These are inconsequential things.

The one important thing tonight

That every seaman, black or white,

Who seeks a harbor sees a light.

We talk about world brotherhood,

But only here we make it good.

We go on building ships of war,

But God be praised, do one thing more;

We build a lighthouse on the shore.