NEW YORK—As the George Washington Bridge turned 80 on Tuesday, the Little Red Lighthouse, located at the bridge’s base and older by a decade, can best be remembered for compelling thousands of children to start a nationwide campaign to save it from being scrapped.
The 40-foot lighthouse was built in New Jersey circa 1880, and was moved to Jeffrey’s Hook in 1921. On the Hudson River near Manhattan’s north boundary, it steered ships clear of the rocky point.
The Coast Guard was going to auction the lighthouse off after the George Washington Bridge, erected in 1931, literally overshadowed it. The 1942 children’s book, “The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge,” by Hildegarde H. Swift, is credited for inspiring both children and adults to send letters and money to keep the lighthouse from going to auction.
“The Little Red Lighthouse stopped being used as a functional lighthouse long ago, but over the years, this 40-foot-high structure has become a beacon of another kind,” says the Lighthouse Friends website. It’s “one of the few surviving lighthouses in New York City and serves as a quaint reminder of the area’s history.”
In 1951, the Coast Guard gave the property to the City of New York, and in 1979 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. It underwent a more-than $200,000 renovation in 1986, courtesy of city Comptroller Harrison Goldin and Parks Commissioner Henry Stern, who raised funds for the project. The Little Red Lighthouse was freshly painted red in 2000 and its light was turned on in 2002 after being dormant for more than five decades.
It is currently owned by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation.
