New York City Parks Department tours kick ass.
A few weeks ago we had a special bus tour of Fresh Kills, the huge Staten Island landfill, now closed, capped, and being planted in preparation for eventual conversion to parkland, but not generally open to the public at this point. This weekend, another Urban Park Ranger took us through the old fort at Fort Totten, a Civil War-era granite fortress on the Willets Point peninsula on the north coast of Queens.
A short distance across the water from Fort Totten, on a spit of land jutting south from the Bronx and now in the shadow of the Throgs Neck Bridge, is Fort Schuyler, which dates from the 1830s and is now the SUNY Maritime College. The two forts were built to defend against a British naval attack on New York City from the east via Long Island Sound.
In the War of 1812 the British had burned Washington, DC, not New York. But the former New Amsterdam was too important a mercantile center to risk leaving vulnerable. During the Civil War the North feared a British alliance with the Confederacy. Hence the sense of urgency. Fort Totten was hastily built - as far as it went - in 1862.
New York City's basic character - tolerant, money-centered, socially and ethnically polyglot - hasn't changed since the 1600s. It's still the financial nerve center of the nation, for one thing. That makes it target number one. The feared British attack never came, but Osama bin Laden took up the gauntlet in 2001, with nightmarish results.
Archways at Fort Totten are made of huge granite blocks quarried in Maine. The white "drippy" stuff is limestone. The floor is made from the same bluestone as you can still see on some sidewalks in neighborhoods like Park Slope, Brooklyn.
We bounced back from that. But today Wall Street has dug itself another grave, this time by outsmarting itself with smart-ass credit tricks. (Good thing we rebuilt DC after the War of 1812 so the Feds could bail out the financial firms in 2008.) New York will climb out of this hole too, of course - we always do. Four centuries of history say so.
Article comments
1 - Dr. Juliann Mitchell, PhD
Jon,
A very interesting piece. I especially enjoyed the photos with captions. The Officers Club looks beautiful. Thanks so much.
Juliann
2 - Rick
My family lived on the Fort for the better part of 1964 to 1981. It's a shame to see the post falling apart at it is. I wish the housing could have been upgraded and retained for the use of the military, but barring that, I'm glad the property is not being turned into a housing development.
3 - Rick
Lots of info on the website, and also the Facebook page.