Hudson-Athens Lighthouse.  Courtesy of the Associated Press.

Dear Commons Community,

The race is on to save a 150-year-old lighthouse from crumbling into the Hudson River.

Wooden pilings beneath Hudson-Athens Lighthouse are deteriorating, and the structure, built in the middle of the river when steamboats still plied the water, is beginning to shift. Cracks are apparent on the brick building and its granite foundation.

While there are other endangered lighthouses around the nation, the peril to this one 100 miles 161 (kilometers) north of New York City is so dire the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed Hudson-Athens on its 2024 list of the country’s 11 most endangered historic places. Advocates say that if action isn’t taken soon, yet another historic lighthouse could potentially be lost in the coming years.

“All four corners will begin to come down, and then you’ll have a pile of rock in the middle. And ultimately it will topple into the river,” Van Calhoun of the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse Preservation Society said during a recent visit.

The society is trying to quickly raise money to place a submerged steel curtain around the lighthouse, an ambitious preservation project that could cost up to $10 million. Their goal is to save a prominent symbol of the river’s centuries-long legacy as a busy waterway. While the Hudson River was once home to more than a dozen lighthouses, only seven still stand.

A good cause and an important part of New York history.

Tony

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