A group of preservationists is trying to save a Hudson River lighthouse that’s more than 100 years old and in danger of sinking.
The Hudson-Athens Lighthouse in Hudson, New York, 100 miles north of New York City, is one of 11 sites on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Most Endangered list.
The lighthouse, built in 1874, has begun to lean, some of the 200 wooden pilings that hold it above the water have deteriorated, and cracks have appeared in the brick structure and granite foundation.
“The corners are going to start to give way, and then you’re going to have a pile of rocks in the middle, and eventually it’s going to collapse into the river,” said Van Calhoun of the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse Preservation Society.
The society is currently working hard to raise funds for a project worth perhaps $10 million to install underwater steel curtains and automated LED beacons around the working lighthouse.
The 100-foot diameter steel curtain would protect the lighthouse from one of the greatest challenges of our time: the giant propellers of large merchant ships.
The propellers erode the mud around the lighthouse’s piles, eventually exposing the piles to water and causing the wood to deteriorate.
“They create turbulence, like being in a washing machine, and that turbulence actually comes down and pulls and stirs and sucks up the soil underneath us,” Calhoun said.
With wire
