Robbins Reef Lighthouse
| Robbins Reef Lighthouse | ||
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| Place: | Bayonne , New Jersey | |
| Location: | On an island in Upper New York Bay | |
| Geographical location: | 40 ° 39 '26 " N , 74 ° 3' 55" W | |
| Fire carrier height : | 14th | |
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| Identifier : | Green flash every 6 seconds | |
| Scope green: | 7 nm (13 km ) | |
| Optics: | Fresnel lens 300 mm | |
| Operating mode: | electric | |
| Function: | Sea fire | |
| Construction time: | 1839 | |
| Operating time: | 1839 - | |
Robbins Reef Lighthouse is a lighthouse in Upper New York Bay , in New York Harbor , off the coast of New Jersey , in the United States .
Location
The lighthouse stands on a small man-made island about 600 meters off the coast of New Jersey, 1.5 kilometers north of Staten Island and about four kilometers southeast of Liberty Island . It marks the Robbins Reef before entering the Kill Van Kull . The lighthouse is easy to see from the Staten Island Ferry .
history
The first lighthouse was built from stone on this site in 1839; today's iron tower was built on the same site in 1883. In the lantern was a state -of-the- art Fresnel lens , the light was generated with kerosene , which burned much brighter and had less soot than the rapeseed oil or pork fat otherwise used. Due to the proximity to the Federal Lighthouse Depot on Staten Island, experiments with the new fuel were carried out for the first time on Robbins Reef Lighthouse. The United States Coast Guard took responsibility for the tower from the Lighthouse Board in 1939 . The tower was automated in 1966. In 2009 the lighthouse was offered for sale under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act and in 2011 it was taken over by the Noble Maritime Collection , a marine museum on Staten Island. The tower has been on the National Register of Historic Places since July 19, 2006 and is still in use as a navigation sign. It is also used for oceanographic and meteorological observation by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration .
construction
The foundation of the tower is a bricked granite base on which the actual iron tower, about 14 meters high, stands. The lower part consists of four round segments that form two floors. The kitchen and living room are on the lower floor, and two bedrooms are on the first floor. The lantern is attached above the iron tower. The tower was designed for a crew of four men, with three on the tower and one on land. It was brown in the first few years and later got a white ring on the top. The lantern is black. The shape of the tower is reminiscent of a spark plug ; towers of this type are referred to as sparkplug lighthouse (spark plug lighthouse). These types of lighthouses had a standardized design and were mainly installed on the northeast and central Atlantic coasts of the United States. They were prepared on land and the individual parts were assembled on site, similar to a prefabricated house, within a few days.
gallery
The lighthouse in 1951 with a station boat
Robbins Reef Lighthouse in 2003
Trivia
Previously, Robbins Reef one of the largest oyster beds in the world. With the increase in water pollution, at the end of the 19th century, the oysters disappeared from the bay.
The lighthouse is also called "Kate's Light", in memory of Katherine Walker , who was the lighthouse keeper who maintained the tower from 1886 to 1919 and lived there with her children after her husband died of pneumonia and she was responsible for the tower with the words "Mind the light, Kate." (Eng. "Take care of the light, Kate") handed over. To give her children access to school, she took them daily to Staten Island in a rowboat. During her 33 years of service on the tower she saved about 50 castaways from death. The buoy laying ship WLM 552 Katherine Walker of the United States Coast Guard was later named after her.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ National Park Service: Navesink and Robbins Reef Lighthouses II
- ^ Navesink Lighthouse and Robbins Reef Lighthouse: Lighting the Way Through New York Bay, National Park Service
- ↑ Noble Maritime Collection: Robbins Reef Lighthouse ( Memento of the original from October 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Robbins Reef Station ID: 8530973, Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System
- ↑ Robbins Reef Lighthouse at Lighthousefriends
- ↑ National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act (NHLPA), GSA Control No .: 1-X-NJ-0668 (doc; 172 kB)
- ^ National Park Service: Navesink and Robbins Reef Lighthouses I.
- ↑ Mark Kurlansky (2006): The Big Oyster, Random House Trade paperbacks, New York, ISBN 978-0-345-47639-5
- ↑ US Coast Guard: THE STORY OF KATHERINE WALKER
