Fort Tompkins Light
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Fort Tompikns Light was a lighthouse located on Staten Island in New York City on the westerley side of the Verrazano Narrows in New York Bay.
The lighthouse was established by the Fort Tompkins Military Base in 1828 to guide ships to Staten Island. The lighthouse did not keep records due to its close proximity to land. As a consequence there are very little records of the lighthouse aside from records kept by the lighthouse board always kept records which provide a history of events that happened at Tompkins. Board archives give detail on the precarious location of the lighthouse. On more than one occasion the lighthouse became a target and various explosions caused the glass in the lantern room to break. They moved the lighthouse in 1871 out of battery range and was not near the water. Its first light in the new location was in 1872. A fourth order Fresnel lens was installed in 1900. The light was an alternate flashing red and white with an interval between flashes of 10 seconds. Three years later the lighthouse was deactivated. They gave the lighthouses duties to the Fort Wadsworth Light in 1903. Soon after the lighthouse was abandoned.
The lighthouse is no longer operational. The tower stood on a Victorian-style home with a white dwelling, Mansard roof and a black lantern.
