The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge

 A favorite bike path here in New York City runs almost the whole length of Manhattan, along the Hudson River.  We like to get on at 68th Street and ride eight miles north, up the river, to the George Washington Bridge.  At the base of the bridge stands a little red lighthouse which has a special story. . . . The Hudson River was essential to the history and economic development of New York.  The river provided food for early settlers, was important to the expansion and growth of the city, and is still an important waterway for commerce. The rocky outcropping of Jeffrey’s Hook has always been a hazard for boats on the Hudson River at night.  In 1921 a previously used lighthouse was moved, reassembled and placed here by the Coast Guard. “Fat, red, and jolly,” it had been built in 1880 of cast iron and steel.  It was the southernmost lighthouse on the Hudson River and the only lighthouse on Manhattan Island. . . .  For lighthouses to show pilots where they are in the dark, they each have a specific color or pattern of flashing called a “characteristic” that pilots can recognize from a distance.  The Little Red Light House’s characteristic is one second of light followed by two seconds of darkness.

Only ten years after Jeffrey’s Hook Lighthouse was assembled here, the George Washington Bridge was built overhead.  Under the bridge’s bright lights, the lighthouse became obsolete for the second time.  In 1947, the Coast Guard de- commissioned the lighthouse, and its light was extinguished.  In 1951, the Coast Guard proposed to dismantle and auction off the lighthouse, but the public protested with an outpouring of letters to officials, largely because the lighthouse was a beloved character in the 1942 children’s book The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge, written by Hildegarde H Swift and illustrated by Lynd Ward.  The campaign to save the lighthouse was successful, and on July 23, 1951 it came under the jurisdiction of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

In the book, the Little Red Lighthouse feels dwarfed by the George Washington Bridge.  He feels unneeded and unwanted until one particularly foggy night when the Bridge calls to him, “Little brother, Where is your light?”  The Lighthouse wonders, “Am I a brother of yours, Bridge?  Your light was so bright that I thought mine was needed no more.”  The Bridge replied, “I call to the airplanes; I flash to the ships of the air.  But you are master of the river.  Quick, let your light shine.  Each to his own place, little brother!”  Today the light in the Jeffrey’s Hook Lighthouse shines on.  It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a New York City landmark.