Happy National Lighthouse Day

Certainly for those of us with an actual lighthouse, this is a day worth celebrating!

It was on this day in 1789, that Congress approved an Act for the establishment and support of lighthouse, beacons, buoys and public piers. In Celebration of the 200th Anniversary of the signing of the Act and the commissioning of the first Federal lighthouse, Congress passed a resolution which designated August 7, 1989 as National Lighthouse Day.
_ from LighthouseFoundation.org

Thanks to Carlos Gonzalez for letting us know and marking the holiday with a nice photo to start our day.

You can get closer to the lighthouse than usual every Saturday of the summer with Sleepy Hollow’s Park to Park event.  

The strip of riverfront is accessible from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. from Horan’s Landing to Kingsland Point Park.

But ever wish the lighthouse had light? Friends of Westchester County Parks have been asking residents to “Turn on the Light” and help restore the Tarrytown Lighthouse. 

According to the organization’s website, the lighthouse need of serious repair. The Friends of Westchester County Parks is asking for donations to the lighthouse’s restoration fund, which will return the lighthouse to its original state with a replica of a fourth order Fresnel lens and turn it into a museum.

Donations, which can be made here, will go toward the creation of a full-scale replica of the lens with prisms that are machined and polished to Fresnel’s original formula.

According to LighthouseFriends.com, Congress authorized the building of the Tarrytown Lighthouse in 1847 to guide ships through shallow spots on the eastern shore of the Hudson River, north of New York City. It was originally supposed to be built near Tellers Point and Sing Sing Prison in Ossining.

The building of the lighthouse was delayed for about three decades until it was built in 1881 for $21,000 one fourth mile off of Kingsland Point in the river. It was known as the Kingsland Point Lighthouse and the Tarrytown Lighthouse, LighthouseFriends.com says.

There were 12 keepers, some who lived in the five story conical structure with their wives and children year-round. The property was only accessible by rowboat, until a footbridge was built in the 1970s.

The lighthouse was no longer need when the Tappan Zee Bridge was built, and it was decommissioned in 1964, according to the Friends of Westchester County Parks. Westchester County took it over from the General Services Administration in 1974 after residents rallied to save it. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

On the 100th anniversary of the Tarrytown Lighthouse’s first lighting it was opened up to the public, there are occasional tours of it now. Work to stabilize the lighthouse, paint it and replace its wooden floors was paid for by Westchester County and the Village of Sleepy Hollow. The project, at a cost of around $800,000, is supposed to be completed this year. 

Click here to read the full post in LighthouseFriends.com.

“Once more residents are rallying to save the Lighthouse, to preserve and restore this beacon from 1883; to set it up as a museum to showcase the Hudson River (with magnificent views from the lantern level balcony), the lifestyle of the lighthouse keepers and the Hudson River’s importance as a navigation route,” says Friends of Westchester County Parks’ website. “This restoration will protect and preserve our Lighthouse.”

This article was written by Dina Sciortino and Krista Madsen.