Continued from August 30.
From Wikipedia.
The Blockhouse is the second oldest structure in New York City's Central Park after Cleopatra's Needle. It is a small fort in the northern part of the fort and is located on a overlook of the Manhattan schist. (Manhattan schist is the bedrock that enables the tall buildings to stand. I didn't know that and had to look kit up.) It has a clear view of the flat surrounding areas north of Central Park.
Finished in 1814, the fort was part of a series of fortifications in northern Manhattan, which originally included three fortifications in what was then Harlem Heights, now known as Morningside Heights. The fortifications were built in fear of a British attack during the War of 1812 which never came.
The Blockhouse is the last surviving fortification from those defenses.
Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux, designers of Central Park, decided Blockhouse No. 1 was a picturesque ruin, romantically overgrown with vines and Alpine shrubbery.
--Brock-Perry
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