Seawall a go with Young’s $50,000 grant
GIB SNYDERArticle Photos
The Dunkirk Lighthouse will soon be getting some much-needed protection from Mother Nature due to additional grant funding announced Monday at a ground-breaking ceremony at the Dunkirk Lighthouse & Veterans Park Museum.
About half of a 300-foot seawall guarding the lighthouse and park's north side needs to be replaced after falling into Lake Erie a few years ago. A $50,000 grant secured through State Sen. Catharine Young's office was the final piece of the puzzle to fund the immediately-needed seawall work. The Chautauqua Home Rehabilitation and Improvement Corporation (CHRIC) and its Executive Director John Murphy played a key role in securing the necessary funds.
"I am particularly pleased to be here today because it's truly a celebration. This work needed to be done and I want to thank John Murphy and CHRIC for your leadership in securing the funds that are necessary to make sure that our landmark, our historical treasure here at the Dunkirk Lighthouse, is preserved," Young said during the ceremony.
"I know that it was a main cause of concern when we had the collapse a couple of years ago, so John reached out to me and said, 'we need to do something,'" she added.
"I especially want to thank Congressman (Brian) Higgins for your leadership. I know you have been very helpful for this project as has Assemblyman Bill Parment. I'm joining them today to announce that I've been able to secure $50,000 for this project so that we can rebuild the wall and we can improve the security here. We always have the threat of vandals. People being here when they're not supposed to be.
"We need to make sure that this place is protected, so I'm glad to be a part of that. I'm glad that you can be here today so we can celebrate the Dunkirk Lighthouse."
Prior to the short ceremony Murphy explained the process and the cause for the ceremony.
"It's a culmination of a lot of preliminary work we had to go through, all the permitting. We had to clear the state Historic Preservation Office reviews, we did archeological studies, we did topography studies," he said. "The contracts are out to bid now and they'll be opened up later this week, so this hopefully is the beginning of construction now on phase one of hopefully, a two-phase project to restore the Lighthouse."
According to Murphy, that construction will come quickly.
"We're hoping that it gets done this summer. It's a relatively simple design. It's a retaining wall ... it's sort of an L-shaped thing. It will involve some excavation and forming up and pouring it and putting a railing along the top and kind of restoring what was lost," he said. "Then we have two other grant applications in to build a retaining wall on the East shore and one to restore the architectural details on the Lighthouse building itself."
The city's contribution was also appreciated by Murphy.
"Common Council agreed to waive the fee for the building permit, which was very generous and we're pleased that the Common Council is involved in the project," he said.
Higgins was asked if the latest grant would be enough to complete the funding.
"Well, bids will have to go out so you don't want to prejudice the bids and how they come back," Higgins said. "We're accumulating monies toward the goal of getting all the work that needs to be done financed here and I think we're well on our way. I think everybody here has done a great, great job and we just have to keep working together in a non-partisan way toward the goal of returning this historic site in its full capacity back to the people of Chautauqua County and the city of Dunkirk."
Perhaps the happiest person about the project's go-ahead was Harold "Dick" Lawson, one of the main driving forces behind the success of turning the lighthouse and its grounds into a tourist destination.
"We're very ecstatic. We're getting in all this money, grants and everything to keep this historic lighthouse going," Lawson said. "It's not mine, I'm just doing my volunteer job of taking care of it and trying to raise funds for it. The seawall is very important to replace because probably 300 feet of it has to be replaced within the next 10 years. Right now we're going to do maybe 150 feet of it and if we don't control the erosion now we'll lose the lighthouse with the undermining, the waves and everything. So we're quite thrilled about the whole thing being here. We think this is the jewel of Dunkirk. A lot of people don't think it is but our gang does."
According to Lawson, the site gets about 15-16,000 visitors between April 1 and the end of October each year, barring disruptions due to construction or detours. The 7th Annual Lighthouse Festival, featuring a WWII battle reenactment and military encampment, draws about 5,000 people and will run Aug. 16-17 - rain or shine.
There is also another addition at the lighthouse.
"We have five young tour girls who volunteered this summer and they're giving tours, they really know what they're doing when they're in there," Lawson said. "I have to give them credit."
Second Ward Councilman Kevin Muldowney was also on hand for the ceremony and was asked for his thoughts.
"It's a big day for the lighthouse. Barb and Dick (Lawson), I mean really, they've killed themselves for the last 20 years ... in bringing tourism into the city," Muldowney said. "We're very grateful to them for the day-to-day plugging away up here. ... This will tie right into our harborfront development. The lighthouse plays a key role in harborfront development, it really does. They bring in an enormous amount of busloads of people to their lighthouse and they really are, I think, the key to the harborfront. Everything else kind of goes hand-in-hand.
"Hopefully the bus stops here and then they go to the Boardwalk and some of the other attractions."
During his remarks Murphy noted that the late Sen. Pat McGee got the ball rolling with a $15,000 grant that allowed the preliminary work to be done. He also recognized the other sources of funding which included the Northern Chautauqua Community Foundation, Lake Shore Savings Bank and the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
"It's a great opportunity for what CHRIC is called, a rural preservation company under New York state Department of Housing and Community Renewal. They fund us so that we can bring resources into the community. ... I'm very pleased that the state supports us and it allows us to do these kinds of projects.
"I thank all of these folks for their financial support and of course acknowledge Dick and Barb Lawson, who work as tirelessly as volunteers and have for 20 years preserved this structure on the National Historic Register."
Send comments to gsnyder@observertoday.com
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tonysoprano
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07-22-08 10:26 AM
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Does Murphy have any ides how long it is going to take to get the necessary federal permits to start the work? By then the money will be used someplace else. Nice try though.
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