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Your Guide to View­ing the 2024 Solar Eclipse on Gov­er­nors Island

Apr 3, 2024 12:43 pm

New York City may not be in the path of total­i­ty for the solar eclipse on April 8, but New York­ers can still expect a pret­ty spec­tac­u­lar sight. Vis­i­bil­i­ty is esti­mat­ed to start at 2:10pm, with max­i­mum vis­i­bil­i­ty at 3:25pm and the eclipse end­ing at 4:36pm.

Gov­er­nors Island is open from 7am-6pm on Mon­day, April 8. Hop on the fer­ry — we sug­gest noth­ing lat­er than the 2:30pm fer­ry from the Bat­tery Mar­itime Build­ing — and head to one of our hand-picked eclipse view­ing spots, list­ed below. Free, ISO-cer­ti­fied solar eclipse glass­es, cour­tesy of War­by Park­er, will be dis­trib­uted to safe­ly view this celes­tial spectacle.

• West­ern water­front esplanade, near the entrance to Col­lec­tive Retreats or along­side Cas­tle Williams.
• The Play Lawns (base­ball fields) in the South Island Park.
• The top of Out­look Hill, or one of the switch­backs in the ADA-acces­si­ble path.
• The ridge­line of Dis­cov­ery Hill.
• Pic­nic Point, the south­ern-most point on the Island.
• The Parade Ground, locat­ed in between Nolan Park and Colonels Row.

We select­ed those spots for max­i­mum sky vis­i­bil­i­ty, but you real­ly can’t go wrong with any wide open area on Gov­er­nors Island. Vis­i­tors can pick up a pair of glass­es (one per per­son) inside the Secu­ri­ty Office at Build­ing 140 as soon as they get off the fer­ry at Sois­sons Land­ing. Glass­es are first come, first served as sup­plies last. Please remem­ber to only view the eclipse while wear­ing ISO-cert­Ti­fied solar eclipse glass­es or look­ing through a pin­hole projector. 

Click here to learn more about view­ing the solar eclipse in New York.