I grabbed the chance revisit the lighthouse on Tuesday with a friend who, having just returned to Saipan after being away for five years, immediately got busy shooting photos of the setting sun from the second level of the lighthouse. Somehow, I was not interested in the sunset because things caught my interest. I waded my way through the piles of empty beer and soda cans and bottles and hordes of other food wrappings to the top of the lighthouse approximately 50 feet up.
I remember seeing the walls then bathed in graffiti and resembled a freedom wall where a penmanship competition was held and everybody wrote anything using black markers — a sad fate for this helpless structure which could have been one of the best tourist destinations on island.
The view from up there was as spectacular as I remember it, with the setting sun providing a wonderful backdrop to the whole area of Garapan.
But the artists have been at work again — this time painting the walls with huge letters and figures using colored paint. Not an inch of space escaped the hands of the vandals who even had the guts to climb to the circular wall and scribble nonsense for the world to see.
Earlier efforts to preserve this historical place which has been included in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places have proved futile. Concerned groups such as the Beautify CNMI and volunteers repainted the lighthouse and erased the graffiti on the walls from time to time, but it’s like a cat and mouse game. As soon as the cleaners are done with their job, the vandals get back to work.
The wind was blowing stronger and dusk was settling in when I descended, this time using my small flashlight to see my way down the flight of dark and slippery stairs.
Records show that the lighthouse, which was constructed in 1934 to guide Japanese ships, was abandoned after the U.S. Navy pulled out of Saipan in 1947.
Despite the tall bushes and thick shrubs that threaten to engulf the whole structure, the place still maintains its power to lure visitors to come up and challenge the slippery and dank stairs, the piles of trash.
The lighthouse survived World War II and withstood years of exposure to the harsh element, but not against vandals who seem to find joy in scribbling nonsense on walls and destroying one of the island’s best tourist destinations.
