Seen here in the over-door mural is a large passenger liner with the light ship Ambrose. The liner is long gone. The Ambrose is still with us and is docked at the nearby South Street Seaport Museum on the East River. The Ambrose was built in 1907 in Camden N.J. by New York Shipbuilding Co., to guide ships safely from the Atlantic Ocean into the broad mouth of lower New York Bay, between Coney Island, New York and Sandy Hook, New Jersey. The area was filled with sandbars and shoals invisible to approaching vessels. Normally a lighthouse was used for illumination, but there, because the water was too deep and the bottom too soft, this floating alternative was devised. For illumination, a cluster of three oil lens lanterns was raised on each masthead. The Ambrose occupied her intended station until 1933. Afterwards, she served as the Scotland lightship closer to Sandy Hook, N. J., until 1963. She was given to the South Street Seaport Museum by the U.S. Coast Guard in 1968.

On the left is Henry Hudson. Reginald Marsh was the artist.

He was hired by the Dutch East India Company in 1609 to try to find the Northwest Passage farther south. In his ship the Half Moon, Hudson sailed to Nova Scotia, and then turned and sailed south. He sailed into New York's harbor on Sept. 3, 1609 (Verrazano sailed by the area in 1524), and noted that it was an excellent harbor. He sailed up river (Hudson River) 150 miles and noted the fertile land, but realized it was not a route to India. His reports resulted in the Dutch settling the area.

A 1610-1611 trip through the Hudson Strait and into Hudson Bay ended in a mutiny after the ship was trapped there for a winter. In 1611, the crew left Hudson, his son, and seven crew members adrift in a small, open boat in Hudson Bay. They were never seen again.