What began as a float in a parade will soon become a museum piece.
An 11-foot scale version of the Sandy Hook Lighthouse constructed in 1998 by Jersey City members of the Public Service Electric & Gas Environmental Partnership will soon be delivered to the Lighthouse Museum in Staten Island.
“We collect all kinds of stuff related to lighthouses from all over the country,” said Lighthouse Museum director Lewis Johnson. “So the model of the Sandy Hook Lighthouse is perfect for us.”
Until recently, the miniature lighthouse has been located at the Central Jersey Railroad Terminal at Liberty State Park. According to park officials, the 11-foot model was inside the terminal’s waiting room where it shared space with other exhibits on transportation in the Jersey City area.
“I believe the lighthouse was donated in April of 1999,” said Richard Dwyer, a spokesperson for PSE&G and a member of the Environmental Partnership. “We’re very happy to see the lighthouse going to the museum.”
The model lighthouse is largely the creation of two men, PSE&G electric distribution supervisor Frank Hunkele and retired carpenter Joseph Billich.
“In 1998, a Girl Scout troop in the town of Toms River asked me to make the light house as float for a Memorial Day parade,” Billich explained. “Frank and I worked on it and it took about two weeks to complete.”
“Joe is a very talented guy,” commented Hunkele. “He really did most of the work.”
Hunkele said the 11-foot model of the Sandy Hook Lighthouse was drawn from blueprints of the lighthouse and imitated the look of the lighthouse down to the smallest detail.
“When you see the model, it got everything right,” said Hunkele. “Right down to the copper roof of the lamp section, it looks just like the original.”
Billich said that he included modifications that have been made to the Sandy Hook Lighthouse since it was first designed.
“I put in the three windows that were not in the original plans,” said Billich. “The windows were added after the lighthouse was built.”
Billich said the model was built on one-fourth of an inch plywood frame, onto which the wooden outer body was laid.
“Then we painted it over with white finish and added a red trim like the original,” Billich added.
The original was built in 1764 and is still the oldest operating lighthouse in the United States. First known as the New York Light, the Sandy Hook Lighthouse was constructed by New York City merchants who were tired of losing cargos to wrecks along the Sandy Hook coast. According to Greg Remaud, president of the Liberty State Park Conservancy and manager of the Baykeeper Conservation Group, the Sandy Hook Lighthouse was the subject of two attacks by Colonial troops during the American Revolution in an attempt to disrupt the transportation of British troops.
After the Revolutionary War, New Jersey and New York were involved in a legal battle over ownership of the Sandy Hook Lighthouse. The debate was resolved when the federal government took over operation of all lighthouses in 1789.
The creation of the Sandy Hook Lighthouse model was not Billich’s first attempt at model building, however.
“Back in the 1960s, I built floats for a lot of groups,” said Billich, adding that he had created a full-scale version of the Mercury space capsule for a Toms River Thanksgiving Day parade.
“One time a Scandinavian organization asked to me to build a Viking ship,” said Billich. “The ship I built was part of a parade and I rode in the ship dressed as Eric the Red.”
Idea to donate
The idea of donating the model lighthouse to Railroad Terminal at Liberty State Park came up during a meeting of the Environmental Partnership Team in 1999.
“We didn’t want to just get rid of it,” said Hunkele. “So we decided to put it [the model] down at the Terminal.”
“The idea for donating the model to the Terminal came up during a conversation I had with Greg Remaud and Edward Pulver, who was the president of the Seafarer’s International Union,” said Dwyer. “Pulver mentioned that the Sandy Hook Lighthouse was the first American symbol seen by immigrants coming into new York Harbor, not the Statue of Liberty.”
The Team agreed to place the built-to-scale model at the Central Jersey Rail Terminal in Liberty State Park.
“The model lighthouse would be an important and largely unknown historical footnote to add to the education received by visitors to Liberty State Park,” Dwyer commented.
According to Dwyer, the Environmental Partnership team is a six-year-old group created to make educational contributions to the community by PSE&G employees.
“The mission of the Environmental Partnership Team is to help educate, protect and improve New Jersey’s natural environment and living resources,” said Dwyer. “The Team promotes parks and open spaces as outdoor classrooms.