Landmark Light Tower Replaced - Brief Article

Cruise Travel, July, 2000

New York Harbor's Historic Ambrose Light Tower Supplanted For The New Millennium

Over the last three decades, passengers arriving or leaving the Port of New York on cruise ships became accustomed to seeing a strange structure, looking like a four-legged stool, just as their ship slowed down by the pilot station. It was the famous Ambrose Light Tower, a U.S. Coast Guard Aids-To-Navigation, and site of the traditional "finish line" on trans-Atlantic speed-record runs for the "Blue Riband."

When it was manned, the Coast Guard crew would often talk about the danger of having the tower hit by one of the many passing ships. The Ambrose crew knew what happened to the Nantucket Lightship on May 15, 1934--it was cut in half by the Olympic, sister-ship to the Titanic, sending it to the bottom with seven of the 11-man crew. As late as 1950, the Ambrose Lightship then at the station was hit by the U.S.-flagged SS Green Bay, fortunately with no loss of life.

The Ambrose Light Tower, an oil-rig-type structure that until automated in 1988 had a crew of U.S. Coast Guardsmen keepers onboard, has now been replaced at the entrance to New York Harbor. No one in the Coast Guard missed having the light automated, for it was not considered good duty, even with the extra leave.

The former tower, which itself replaced the lightship in 1967, was struck by the tanker MT Aegeo in October of 1996, damaging a 15-foot leg section beyond repair. Temporary repairs to the one leg of the four-leg tower lasted until the $4.5-million funding for a new replacement structure was found.

In September of 1999, a contractor removed the 32-year-old tower that had become a landmark at the entrance to New York Harbor by the pilot station. The new tower was floated in location, 1 1/2 miles southeast of the old tower, and special legs sunk down in 95 feet of water to hold it in place.

A three-leg affair, the new structure's light runs on solar power, flashing a white burst every five seconds from an aviation-type beacon that is visible some 18 nautical miles out to sea. The Coast Guard's Aids-To-Navigation group said the new location of the Ambrose Light Tower provides more space for marine traffic going and coming from the Port of New York and New Jersey.