Fort Niagara Work Day

It was a beautiful day in Upstate New York and eight members of the Eastern Great Lakes Harbour Lights Collectors Club got together to give the lighthouse a spring cleaning!



The crew are: Mike Kaiser (front); Back left to right) Cheryl & Bill Pitz, Patty Kaiser, Sheryl Iovanna (beaconfollower); Roger Oppel (Sonic); Frank Polley, Carol Innerst (eskilady).

After a thorough sweeping and vacuuming.



And cleaning windows inside & out.



It was time for a short break where we visited the 4th Order Fresnel Lens which is kept in storage. Jere Brubaker was very nice in allowing us to view and take pictures of the lens ~ now to get it back up in the tower where it belongs!





With the crew working steady ... we started at 10:00 and finished (with break) at 1:30. A beautiful day at a lighthouse.

Nice work, gang.

Is that a dark panel on the lens, Mike?

Looks like you guys had a great day for the cleaning. Thanks for sharing the pictures with us!

Who is that masked man?? Was he expecting the SARS virus to drop by?

Anyways, Great Work! Glad you got a pretty day for your work project. Until someone gets the opportunity to actually help work at one of our lighthouse treasures, they just don't know what they are missing. I know that every time we are at the MC light, Executive Director June keeps thanking us for everything - sure makes you feel good at the end of the day, no mater how tired you are.

Thanks for helping to make Fort Niagara Light better for all of us to enjoy.

Dave

I'm proud of all of you Thanks too for posting the pictures.
Ruthie

Way to go guys and gals! Thanks for the report and pics.
Bob

Great looking group there!

Great job and fantastic work on the pictures!!!

You guys hugged a lighthouse and I know that it hugged you back!!

Great Job!

To answer John's question it is a copper panel. I think (but not sure) that the purpose was for access to the bulb. It looks like it was built that way so that the one section was open. It seemed strange to see him "roll" it out of the storage room.

Jere believes that this is the original lens. Before they raised the tower, it was a rotating lens and when they raised the tower, it became fixed.

Patty

Patty,

It could be for a different reason, but it looks just like the way the Sandy Hook Lens is setup.

The reason given for that makeup was so that the Lighthwould not shine in that direction and be seen from the Navesink River.

It's possible given the setting of the Lighthouse that the reason is the same.

Just a thought.

Dennis

I think Dennis is probably right. If the lens did not rotate (no flash panels), then it exhibited a constant white light out to the water -- and not on the community side. That would explain the panel which would also provide easy access to the wick.

Dennis is right. The copper panel is to keep the light from shining in that direction. It is the same as the fifth order lens at Old Michigan City Lighthouse. There it was to keep the light from shining into the city. It is also to access the light.

Looks like you guys had a lot of fun and got a lot of work done. Work goes so much quicker when you are having fun.

Keep up the good work.

great discussion here. Learned a lot

I thought the same thing about the panel, but it was originally a rotating lens so that i thought that it might rule out that theory. I really don't know. Maybe it has something to do with the footprint (?) as well. But anyways...it's a neat lens. And it is in great shape!

Patty

If it rotated and there are no 'bulleye' flash panels, then that solid panel would provide a blink. Assuming the light rotated once a minute and that the panel takes up about 90 degrees, then the light would be "on" for 45 seconds and "off" for 15.

Right? Or would that depend on how FAR you were from the light?

"A train leaves Chicago..."

Yes thanks for the information, I have learned alot about the lens too. I really have just started to read into it. Thanks for the pictures too, Patty. It was fun and lot less work than last year. That just made it better to enjoy the company.

John's explanation makes sense if it did rotate. Do we know if that lens was in the Lighthouse when it was a rotating Light?

I was basing my thoughts on the similarities between the place that Sandy Hook and Fort Niagara are situated- along a coast and directly in front of a river.

Hey, what do I know. We'll have to Commission the Lighthouse sleuth to come up with the final answer

Dennis

according to my research the fourth order lens was installed in 1872. The current lens is still the original lens.

The NPS Site lists the lens installed in 1872 as a replacement of an 1859 lens both of which are listed as Fourth Order Fresnels.

It's sems some modification was made to the Lens when the Tower had 11 feet added to it's height in 1900

This site lists that the characteristic was changed in 1900-

http://home.attbi.com/~deb1/NNNS/FortNiagara.html


3) In 1900, the Characteristic was changed to Occulting White (the period of light exceeds the period of darkness at recurring intervals).


Dennis

Looks like you had a great day helping a lighthouse.

Can you tell me what stage of restoration this lighthouse is at? Is it mostly restored? Is it open as a museum? Does it have a non-profit group helping it/running it?

Suzanne Murphy

Suzanne, The Fort Niagara Lighthouse is located at Old Fort Niagara, which is a New York State Park. The state has ownership of the light and is in charge of running it. The room at the bottom of the tower is open during the summer season as a gift shop and it has some displays of lighthouse history. The tower is not normally open for climbing. I think the state has a group of local residents as an advisory board but to my knowledge there is no other group raising money for the lighthouse, other than our HL collector club.
The lighthouse is in fair condition, it badly needs paint on the inside of the tower, new windows and some work on the outside of the building.

In other words we, as New York State taxpayers are already paying for upkeep and maintenance for the State Park which includes the Fort and the Lighthouse. It's my understanding that the Fort receives most of the state funds with a small amount allotted to the Lighthouse.

When we had a get together last summer with Bill our club members, who presented a check in support of the lighthouse, were charged admission to park our cars. We were, however, offered a free tour of the fort and were able to use one of the park buildings for the event.

As I haven't been able to attend any of the work days I'm curious to know if those who have have been required to pay the admission those days? If so it doesn't seem right somehow.

I do know that NY State offers free parking to seniors during weekdays but not weekends. For obvious reasons our times at the lighthouse are on weekends.

In addition to the lighthouse itself there is an adjacent keeper's house which I believe is rented out for additional income. Whether that money goes towards the lighthouse I don't know. There is talk of possible restoration of the building and the installation of a museum.

Another plan is to remove the section of the parking lot in front of the lighthouse. Anyone who visits during busy periods will attest to the fact that getting decent photos of the lighthouse while there are cars parked in this area is difficult.