Saving The Gay Head Light
From 1956 to 1985, the automated Gay Head Light was sparingly maintained by the United States Coast Guard. Due to US Coast Guard Congressional funding shortages through the 1970s and early 1980s, various lighthouses around the United States were designated for destruction because the structures were expensive to maintain, and no longer served as vital aids to navigation. This obsolete designation was precipitated by enhanced satellite GPS and other electrical maritime navigation aids. In the mid-1980s, due to United States Coast Guard funding shortages, the Gay head Light along with two other Martha's Vineyard lighthouses (East Chop Light and Edgartown Harbor Light) were listed for destruction. Documentation of lighthouses destroyed in recent history is available from Lighthouse Digest, which maintains a "Doomsday List" of threatened lighthouses. As in other similar lighthouse removal projects, the United States Coast Guard would dismantle or raze the existing lighthouse and, if deemed necessary, replace the light with a low-maintenance iron spindle structure top-mounted with a strobe light.
The three threatened lights on Martha's Vineyard were saved through the objecting federal petition and Congressional testimony of Vineyard Environmental Research, Institute's (VERI) founding President, William Waterway Marks, and VERI Chairperson, John F. Bitzer, Jr. VERI was a nonprofit organization co-founded in 1984 by William Waterway Marks and Fairleigh S. Dickinson, Jr., to undertake cutting-edge environmental research of acid rain; sea-level rise; coastal erosion; shellfish resources; Great Pond, wetland, and barrier beach ecosystem dynamics, and aquifer (groundwater) protection. In 1984, VERI received the support of Senator Ted Kennedy and Congressman Gerry Studds during and after the Congressional hearings to save the three island lighthouses from being dismantled and/or razed. Following the Congressional hearings, the United States Coast Guard licensed the three lights to VERI in 1985 for thirty-five years. This lighthouse license gave complete control over the management and maintenance of Gay Head Light structure (except the aide to navigation) and its surrounding grounds.
This was the first time in U.S. History that control of "active" lighthouses was transferred to a civilian organization. On similar note, this was the first time in the history of Martha's Vineyard that control of any of its five lighthouses was now in the hands of an island organization. After receiving the lighthouse license, the Institute undertook a series of fundraising activities that engaged the community of Martha's Vineyard, including local supporters and celebrities such as board members: Fairleigh S. Dickinson, Jr.; Jonathan Mayhew, whose ancestor's were the Vineyard's first European settlers; Vineyard Gazette co-owner, Jody Reston; philanthropist, Flipper Harris; Margaret K. Littlefield; the actress, Linda Kelsey; WHOI Director, Derek W. Spencer, and John F. Bitzer, Jr.. Speakers and performers appearing at these lighthouse events were renowned historian, David McCullough; Senator Ted Kennedy; Caroline Kennedy; Edward M. Kennedy, Jr.; Congressman Gerry Studds; singer/songwriter, Carly Simon; Kate Taylor; Livingston Taylor; Hugh Taylor; Dennis Miller from Saturday Night Live; Bill Styron's wife, Rose Styron - who read one of her original lighthouse poems; United States Navy Rear Admiral, Richard A. Bauman; famed photographer, Alfred Eisenstaedt, and comedian, Steve Sweeney. The proceeds from the lighthouse benefits were applied to a major restoration of the Gay Head Light, which included: emergency pointing of brick walls; removal of pervasive toxic mold growing on the brick interior walls; installing new windows on the ground floor and two landing levels; replacing broken plate glass and sealing roof leaks in the lighting room; restoration of hardwood staircase rail; sandblasting, sealing, and painting of the historic rusted cast-iron spiral staircase and its three story internal metal flooring and support structure.
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“That is Lenin. Look at the self-willed, stubborn head. A real Russian peasant’s head with a few faintly Asiatic lines. That man will try to overturn mountains. Perhaps he will be crushed by them. But he will never yield.”
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