The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge

by Hildegarde H. Swift and Lynd Ward

The current, restored edition of this classic book features original watercolors initially painted by Lynd Ward for the book in the days right after Pearl Harbor and lost for over a generation. They capture the dark shadows and looming nature of the giant bridge while dark blues and blacks on nearly every page reflect the tight security conditions which led the illustrator to post a lookout while he was sketching the bridge and the national mood of the times.

This classic tale of a proud lighthouse on the Hudson River always makes me think of home. I grew up in New York City, not too far from "the Great Gray Bridge" (the George Washington Bridge). This book tells the story of a red lighthouse whose job it is to guide the boat traffic that plies the mighty Hudson. During the day, the lighthouse is silent and motionless. Every night, it goes "Flash! Flash!" every night to warn boats away from dangerous rocks. When there is a storm, a man comes and winds and winds and winds a clock inside, and a bell begins to ring. "Warn-ing! War-ning!" "'Flash!' said the light." "'War-ning!' said the bell."

One day, men begin to dig next to the lighthouse. Soon, they are dragging cables across the river and raising huge steel towers. One day, the lighthouse stops flashing and ringing, and the light on top of the tower starts to flash instead. The once-proud lighthouse feels sad and useless, until there is a terrible fog and a boat crashes into the rocks in front of the lighthouse. After than, the man comes back and winds up the clock, and the lighthouse begins to ring again. The lighthouse realizes that it still has a job to do and that while the light on top of the big new bridge is useful for some things, the lighthouse is still needed.

I have vivid memories of hearing this story as a child and looking for the little red lighthouse. Sure enough, it still stands! The bridge towers over it, but the tiny old lighthouse has hung on for 130 years. It looks minuscule and humble under the great mass of steel that is the George Washington Bridge, but on foggy days my brothers and sisters and I always swore we could hear the bell ringing.