October 14-15, 2006
For the past seven years, the New Jersey Lighthouse Society has hosted the New Jersey Lighthouse Challenge, during which 11 lighthouses
(including one replica) are open to the public. In 2006, I participated for the first time; the following is a photographic and text record of this
year's Challenge. The weather was perfect, sunny and mild, and I was able to make the entire trip from Sandy Hook down to Cape May, then up the Delaware
Valley to Paulsboro, across the river from Philadelphia.
Twin Lights
Highlands
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Twin Lights is, as far as I know, unique. Situated on the Highlands of Navesink, one of the highest points on the Atlantic Seaboard, Twin
Lights resembles a fortified structure with lights at either end. The first photo shows the north tower; it is difficult to get a good closeup photo
of the entire structure because the ground drops off precipitously close to the lighthouse. There have been lights here since the early part of the
19th century; the original construction had two freestanding towers. The second photo looks north from the lighthouse across Sandy Hook Bay, Sandy Hook
and Lower New York Bay. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn, is faintly visible in the distance. Sandy Hook Light is the
white object on Sandy Hook below the east (right) tower of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The third photo looks east at boat traffic on the Shrewsbury
River, with Sandy Hook and the Atlantic Ocean in the background. The fourth photo, taken from the foot of Sandy Hook, shows the entire Twin Lights structure,
perched above the houses of the borough of Highlands.
Sandy Hook
Sandy Hook is the oldest lighthouse still standing in the United States. Constructed in 1764 and paid for through a lottery, it was
commissioned by George Washington after the Revolution. It is surrounded by the buildings of Fort Hancock, a decommissioned military installation that
was constructed as part of the defenses of New York Harbor. Many of the gun batteries and bunkers are still visible. In the picture at the lower left,
the low building in the foreground marks the shoreline at the time of the construction of the lighthouse. Through the natural action of the ocean and
bay, the Hook has expanded its land area to the point that the lighthouse now stands a mile and a half from the tip. The lower right photo looks north
across Lower New York Bay to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.
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