New Dorp Light
25 Boyle Street | Lighthouse Hill | built 1901
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1854
A plain clapboard keeper's house carries a square light tower through its roof
The Landmarks Preservation Commission called the building, put up around 1854, a vernacular structure without equal in the metropolitan area. It is a one-and-a-half-story clapboarded frame house on a low brick foundation, with a squat square tower rising from the middle of its steep gable roof. A cantilevered balcony, or captain's walk, circles the tower room, and a pyramidal roof topped by the beacon caps it.
“This rectangular, utilitarian structure with a low square light house tower rising from the center of its steeply pitched gable roof is a type without equal…”
- 1856
The New Dorp range light begins guiding ships through Swash Channel
Congress approved money for the lighthouse on August 31, 1852, and it was finished in 1856 as a rear range light marking Swash Channel in Lower New York Bay. Richard Carlow built it, as he did the New Jersey range lights at Chapel Hill and Point Comfort. Its first lens showed a fixed red light 192 feet above sea level, and first keeper John B. Fountain lived in the house beneath the tower.
“John B. Fountain was the first light keeper, who resided in the light keepers house upon which the lighthouse tower was built.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1964
The Coast Guard turns off the New Dorp light and boards up the house
The Federal Lighthouse Service ran the station until 1939, when the U.S. Coast Guard took it over. On June 15, 1964, the Coast Guard decommissioned it: the steady beam was put out and the house's windows were boarded over. From its hilltop the light had been visible to ships far down Lower New York Bay.
“On June 15, 1964 the station was decommission ed by the Coast Guard. Its light was dark ened, and the windows in the house were boarded up.”
- 1967
The city landmarks the lighthouse over the federal government's objection
When the Landmarks Preservation Commission took up the lighthouse in 1966, a federal representative wrote that U.S.-owned property was not subject to local law. The commission designated it anyway on November 15, 1967, saying it knew of the jurisdictional question but wanted to state officially the city's deep concern that the building be preserved and to alert New York's representatives in Washington.
“…a representative of the Federal Government questioned the proposal to desi gnate the building, saying that Federally-owned property is not subject to regulation by local law.”
- 1974
John Vokral buys the vandalized lighthouse at auction for $32,000 and restores it
After its 1964 shutdown the lighthouse and its land sat neglected and vandalized for ten years. In 1974 Staten Islander John Vokral bought the property at auction for $32,000. He carried out extensive restoration work, and the former light station became a private home that is not open to the public.
“…sold at auction to a Staten Island resident named John Vokral for $32,000 in 1974. Vokral did extensive restoration work…”
Source: Wikipedia
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