My childhood neighbor Al posted this image on Facebook recently showing something I had never seen nor had heard of before. This is the glow of the sunset reflected off of the Freedom Tower located at One World Trade Center in Manhattan.
On the bluff overlooking Raritan Bay from Morgan, you can see the tallest Manhattan buildings looming above Staten Island. According to Al, and this only started with the building of the Freedom Tower which replaced the twin towers of the World Trade Center, twice a year the glow from the Freedom Tower washes over Morgan. I find this kind of poetic since the glow also bathes the Morgan Family Cemetery and especially the three of its permanent residents who were in the Revolutionary War.
Captain James Morgan, Sr. and his son James Morgan, Jr. were both intimately involved with what we know as the Revolutionary War in their own back yard. You can learn more about their lives in other sections of this web site.
What is particularly appropriate is when the light from the Freedom Tower shines over the final resting place of Lieutenant Nicholas Morgan, the third Morgan Family member buried in the cemetery. Nicholas, the son of James, Sr. and older brother of James, Jr., was actually killed while on duty in the Morgan area during the Revolutionary War at age 27.
There are other veterans of other American wars buried in the Morgan Family Cemetery as well as many veterans buried in the other cemetery in Morgan, Christ Church Cemetery (including my father). Nicholas, however, was the only one I know of who died in Morgan during the war he was part of.
According to Al, he was painting his bedroom the first time he had “seen the light” and it came as a shock to him. He had never heard about the phenomena and fleetingly thought Manhattan was under attack again as it had been on September 11, 2001.
Al says the glow happens twice a year. This photo shows it on May 15, 2020 from the bluffs of Morgan overlooking Raritan Bay (long ago known as Morgan Heights).
I’m surmising the next time the sun will reflect off the shiny walls of the Freedom Tower onto Morgan will be when the earth is on the other side of the summer solstice. If May 15 is 36 calendar days before the summer solstice, likely the Freedom Glow will again appear over the bluffs of Morgan 36 or so calendar days after the summer solstice.
That makes the second date in 2020 to be July 26.
Let us know if this is when it actually happens!
Originally posted on May, 30, 2020.
What a great piece of history. I was always told by the bigger kids of the Morgan Cemetery , but because of my age I wasn’t allowed to go look for it. By the time I was old enough no one who was still around.
I’m glad it’s being documented. I hope to go back some day and find it for myself .