History
Old Orchard Shoal Light was completed and lit on April 25, 1893.
The Fresnel lens was removed in 1950.
Before moving on to Governor's Island and then finally Coney Island Light, Frank Schubert, said to be the last civilian lighthouse keeper in the United States, was stationed at Old Orchard Shoal Light.
Old Orchard Shoal Light is listed on the National Park Service's Maritime Heritage Program as Lighthouse to visit and as one of New York's Historic Light Stations.
On May 29, 2007, the Secretary of the Interior identified Old Orchard Shoal Light Station as surplus under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000. The property was described as
Gedney Channel/Lower New York Bay, 3.5 miles south of New Dorp Beach. Remote 35 ft. conical, 3-story “spark plug” style light (1893) with keeper’s quarters (approx. 1000 SF). Interior lined in brick up to 3rd floor. On 0.72 acre submerged land. Constructed of cast iron on concrete/cast iron caisson. Markings: white upper/black. Protective riprap and breakwater sheltering light’s boat basin. Accessible by boat only."
No group was identified under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act as willing and able to preserve the Old Orchard Shoal Light, and on June 5, 2008, the General Services Administration placed the light up for sale via an auction. The initial bid was $10,000 and the light finally closed on August 27, 2008 at a final bid of $235,000.
The lighthouse was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012.
Read more about this topic: Old Orchard Shoal Light
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“Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action—that the end will sanction any means.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)