Icon #7: Sandy Hook Lighthouse, 85 Mercer Rd, Highlands

You either love New York City, or you hate it. But regardless of your opinion of the Big Apple, we’ve got to give credit where credit is due. If it weren’t for the merchant community of New York City springing into action in 1761, we may never have gotten the pleasure of enjoying the awesome sight that is the Sandy Hook Lighthouse.
Way back in 1679, it was suggested to Sir George Carteret that a lighthouse be constructed in Sandy Hook. But decades went by before a string of three shipwrecks, which cost the community £20,000 in damages, finally spurred the New York City merchants to revisit the idea.

Finally, in 1764, the country’s oldest standing lighthouse was built at the bank of the New York Harbor in the Navesink Highlands of New Jersey, and on June 11, 1764, Sandy Hook Lighthouse – then known as New York Lighthouse – was lighted for the first time. And it still stands today.

When the building celebrated its 250^th anniversary in 2014, it did so with two distinct titles under its belt. Not only is it the oldest standing lighthouse in the nation, it’s also the “reigning champ of continuous service,” as noted by nj.com. In fact, the building’s 1,000-watt bulb can be seen shining as far as 12 miles out into the Atlantic.

The 103-foot-tall octagonal building is quite a sight, located about a mile and half inland from the tip of Sandy Hook. All eight sides of the structure are equal in size, with the diameter at the base measuring 29 feet and the diameter at the top measuring 15 feet.

The building’s bright white exterior shines in the sun, constructed out of a type of granite known as rubblestone, while the interior walls were refinished in solid brick in 1857 and were then repointed once more in 2000. A set of iron steps ascends nine stories up the center of the structure from bottom to top.

Located immediately adjacent to the lighthouse is the keeper’s cottage, which was built in the 1880s and now serves as a museum. It was restored in 2013 after sustaining sizable damage in Hurricane Sandy.

“We want to preserve historic buildings so that they can continue to serve the public in a new century,” John Warren, the property’s public affairs officer, told nj.com in 2014. “The lighthouse shows that it can be done.”

Indeed, the lighthouse hosts tours year ‘round, allowing visitors to climb the tower and enjoy the view from the top, where areas as far as Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, Staten Island, and Middlesex and Monmouth counties can be seen.

Best Wishes,

Karen