Volunteer revives interest in Greenport attraction that gives visitors panoramic harbor view

One of the best waterfront views of Greenport’s Mitchell Park can be found indoors, within a pitch-black room known as a camera obscura.

The attraction, which gives visitors a panoramic view of Greenport Harbor, was first unveiled in 2005 but hasn’t been consistently open in more than a decade due to a lack of interest. This summer, a professor of visual culture and media studies is spearheading efforts to revive enthusiasm for the landmark some assume is an eccentrically shaped storage shed.

“It’s always been something in Mitchell Park that I’ve been really curious about,” said Molly Davy, 33, who spends summers visiting relatives in the area. The Minnesota native, who teaches at Pratt Institute and Parsons School of Design in Manhattan, said she’s always been intrigued by the analog way of seeing that dates back to ancient times. 

After approaching village officials earlier this year to inquire about reopening it, she’s now volunteering at the camera obscura to share the marvel with parkgoers through demonstrations. “It’s a unique way of seeing the entire view of the harbor,” she said. “One of the most beautiful things to see is the way sunlight reflects off of the water.”

Latin for “dark room,” a camera obscura is an optical device and predecessor to the modern-day camera that uses a small opening, or pinhole, to allow light to enter a structure and project an inverted image. In Greenport, scenes of the external world are projected in full color onto a round table and brought into focus by raising or lowering the table. A joystick allows visitors to pan for 360-degree views of shopkeepers on Front Street, the antique carousel or ferries docking nearby.

Designed as part of the Mitchell Park project in 2003 by Manhattan-based SHoP Architects, the camera obscura is one of about 50 remaining in the world and five nationwide, village officials estimate.

“I call it the Victorian IMAX theater. It really creates a very vivid, three dimensional experience,” said SHoP founding principal William Sharples.

Mitchell Park was the first project for the firm, which also designed the Barclays Center and redesigned Nassau Coliseum. Sharples said designing the camera obscura was a “cutting-edge moment” since it was built using digital, 3D modeling rather than traditional blueprints. Instead, 1,487 wood and metal parts were fabricated off site and put together using visual instructions akin to putting together Legos or a model airplane.

Though the camera obscura had been open to visitors on an appointment basis, Mayor Kevin Stuessi said the village typically booked fewer than 10 visitors each year. It costs $1 to visit, though Davy is hoping to raise funds to help maintain the structure through donations.

On the first day the camera obscura reopened in early June, Davy welcomed more than 80 visitors — and two dogs — who marveled at the moving image. “It’s a special part of Mitchell Park,” Stuessi said. “I’m thrilled the doors are open on it again.”

Davy plans to open the camera obscura, weather permitting, on Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. throughout the summer and hopes to create a scavenger hunt for visitors to find objects in the village using the camera obscura.

She’s also partnered with village trustee Lily Dougherty-Johnson to enlist additional volunteers.

“It’s something that you don’t see a lot, and something very simple but also technologically interesting,” Dougherty-Johnson said. “It’s just a shame for it to be there but not be used.”