Probably no lighthouse has ever had a birthday party like the one being thrown this summer for the iconic 1874 Hudson-Athens Lighthouse, which turns 150 years old this year.
At noon on June 1, a Lighthouse Parade launches a summer of art, film, music, and festival events. Over 100 vessels of all shapes, sizes, and purposes will leave from staging areas at Athens, Coxsackie and Catskill to provide a spectacle as they parade south on the west side of the Hudson River to the Rip Van Winkle bridge and then back up the east side to circle Hudson-Athens Lighthouse and then dock near Hudson’s Waterfront Park at about 2 pm.
From 11 am to 4 pm an onshore festival celebrates at the park with music, food, craft vendors, and community tables. On June 1, Hudson-Athens Lighthouse Preservation Society will livestream the festive Lighthouse Parade at its website www.HALPS.org.
Vessels include U.S. Coast Guard vessels, the New York Naval Militia, Columbia and Greene County Rescue Squads and Police boats, boats from the 22 clubs of the Mohawk-Hudson Council of Boat Clubs, the Schooner Apollonia, the historic Schooner Eleanor, tugboats, fireboats, and pleasure crafts.
Responsible individual, organizational, and corporate boats are invited to register for free online here to join the Lighthouse Parade. Commemorative vessel burgees are available for $20.
To participate in the 11 am to 4 pm festival at Hudson Waterfront Park on June 1, interested vendors should contact Kathleen Tan at events@hudsonathenslighthouse.org to register and pay a $75 vendor registration fee.
Along with support from community partners, the array of summer festivities is sponsored by the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse Preservation Society (HALPS) the small, volunteer-based nonprofit that solely owns and maintains HAL with no government support.
Hudson-Athens Lighthouse is listed on the National and State Registries of Historic Places and is a NY chartered museum. HALPS provides free boat rides and guided tours of the lighthouse to school groups in the spring and fall and to the public during Hudson’s summer Waterfront Wednesdays.
HALPS’s paid tours on designated summer weekends are always popular with residents and visitors alike. Sitting in the middle of the Hudson River, the US Coast Guard light at the top of Hudson-Athens Lighthouse’s 46-foot tower still serves as a navigation aid, but the Lighthouse also continues to be a steadfast beacon of identity for its communities and the region throughout the changing colors of seasons and weather and outlined in lights during the winter providing a warm glow against the cold river ice.
Even so, this 150th birthday celebration is tinged with the urgent, desperate need to protect the Lighthouse from imminent collapse and preserve it for future generations. The enormous commercial vessels that use the close-by navigation channel maintained by the US Army Corps of Engineers are unintentionally damaging Hudson-Athens Lighthouse, creating underwater surges of displaced water that slam against the lighthouse’s foundation.
On receding, the powerful surges have sucked away huge boulders that hold in the protective mud packed around the 200 wooden pilings that hold up Hudson-Athens Lighthouse. That action has also damaged the eight-room building and threatens the lighthouse’s existence within a few years.
Because of this, on May 1, the National Trust for Historic Preservation designated Hudson-Athens Lighthouse as one of 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in the US.
HALPS is raising funds to repair, restore, and protect the Lighthouse for another 100 years. Among other grants, fundraising, and donations, the State of New York has awarded HALPS over $1 million in grants to stabilize Hudson-Athens Lighthouse’s building and bring the underwater work to shovel-ready status.
In addition to mitigating the current damage, the 100-year remedy calls for a metal curtain to be installed around the 100-foot diameter of riverbed around the Lighthouse that HALPS owns, work expected to cost over $7.5 million. To this end, HALPS is supported by elected officials and the US Army Corps of Engineers who are working to secure funding.
Check out www.HALPS.org for updates and details about this summer’s events to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the exquisitely beautiful, historically significant, and whimsical Hudson-Athens Lighthouse. And be sure to join in the Lighthouse Parade and festival fun in person on the waterfront or via the livestream from the same HALPS’s website.
Photo of Hudson-Athens Lighthouse on the Hudson River provided.
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