In September 2004 my wife and I spent a week on Long Island and made a couple visits to New York City. One one of the visits we took the Circle Line tour, a boat tour around Manhattan. One of the landmark+s we passed was Jeffrey’s Hook Lighthouse, a small lighthouse located along the Hudson River and under the George Washington Bridge.
The current lighthouse was built in 1921. The George Washington Bridge, completed in 1931, passed right over the little 40′ lighthouse. The bridge’s navigational lights made the little lighthouse obsolete and it was decommissioned in 1948. The Coast Guard had intended to dismantle the lighthouse and auction off the parts but public outcry saved the little light, largely due to fans of Hildegarde Swift’s children’s book, The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge.
Jeffrey’s Hook Lighthouse was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 and was designated a New York City Landmark in 1991. In 2002 the lighthouse was relighted by the city. The little red lighthouse was operational once again.
Mostly True 