"The lighthouse stands at the northern tip of Roosevelt Island. Designed by James Renwick and built in 1872, the lighthouse is 50 feet tall with an octagonal shaft, and built of hewn blocks of gneiss in Gothic style. It is an imposing structure... Legend has it that before the lighthouse was built the outcropping was the site of a small fort and house belonging to the fort’s builder and who thereafter became the de facto caretaker of the property. To build the fort, the builder used materials found nearby and which were common on the island: clay, rock, dirt, and tall grasses. To get the materials to construction site on the outcropping, the builder faced an engineering challenge: the watery gap between island and outcropping. He solved his problem by creating a landfill using the clay, till, and rock. The power to accomplish all this work was supplied by the builder’s own brute strength and intelligence, working alone and by his own hand. It took determination, imagination, and time. Time was something he had in spades, as he was an inmate at the Lunatic Asylum, located just down the road apiece from the fort. His name was Thomas Maxey."

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