William J. Worth-- Part 6: Worth Square, Manhattan

William Worth's remains were reinterred in a 51-foot granite monument on Worth Square on a traffic island between Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 25th Street  in New York City's borough of Manhattan.  It is the second oldest monument in New York City (the oldest is Cleopatra's Needle).

It was designed and built by James G. Batterson in 1857.

The monument's decorative bands are inscribed with the names of Worth's battles and attached to the front of it is a bronze equestrian relief of Worth.  The top of each spike of the cast iron fence surrounding the monument is topped with a plumed helmet he is wearing on the memorial plaque.  The main part of each spike is modeled after Worth's Congressional sword.

The American artist Thomas Hart Benton depicted the monument in his "New York: Early Twenties" painting  Worth Street (Manhattan) at the southern end of Little Italy, is named in his honor.

Quite an Important Early American Hero You Probably Have Never Heard Of Before.  --Brock-Perry

New York City's Blockhouse in Central Park-- Part 1: A Picturesque Ruin

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

Seven Things You Didn't Know About New York's Central Park-- Part 4: The Whisper Bench and the Surveyor Bolt

5.  The park is home to the "Whisper Bench" in Shakespeare Garden.  It is similar to the whispering walls of Grand Central.  It is named in honor of Charles B. Stover, a park advocate and co-founder  of the University Settlement.  It is a curved  granite bench that can be found in the four-acre Shakespeare Garden.

If you sit at one end and whisper , the sound travels to the other side, creating a way to share secrets, even in this age of social distancing.

6.  There is a surveyor bolt put in place by the mastermind of the Manhattan Grid that remains unmarked. 

John Randel Jr., the chief surveyor who designed the Manhattan street grid more than 200 years ago, traversed the city  for about a decade to mark nearly 1,000 future intersections.  Randel and his team were not exactly loved by New Yorkers at the time and some destroyed his markers, set their dogs after him and even threw vegetables at him.

Only one of his many bolts has been found at a location originally marked as Sixth Avenue and 65th Street but is now a part of Central Park.  Embedded in a rock on the southern end of the park, the bolt's location remains unmarked in order to preserve it, as well as create a treasure hunt for history and city planning buffs.

--Brock-Perry

Fort Gibson, NY-- Part 6: Two Triangles of Fire

From HMdb.

Fort Gibson, on Ellis Island in New York Harbor, was part  of two defensive triangles which made it virtually impossible for enemy ships (especially British) to approach New York City.

Any ship approaching would first have to pass through the crossfire between Fort Wood on today's Liberty Island, Fort Gibson on the west and from Castle Williams on Governors Island to the east.

In the unlikely event a ship or ships would get through that triangle it would face an even bigger challenge, passing through the second triangle formed by Ellis Island, Governors Island and the Battery of Lower Manhattan.

Within this second triangle, the farthest a ship could be at any time from the guns of one of these harbor defenses would be 1,000 yards.

No enemy ever attempted to penetrate this extraordinary  defense system.

--Brock-Perry

Fort Gibson-- Part 3: One of 40 U.S. Forts Built 1794-1812

From the HMdb.

Fort Gibson was one of 40 forts constructed between 1794 and 1812 in the United States.  All were built  during threats of war resulting from attacks in American shipping by Great Britain and France.

Many of the forts in the New York area were constructed in this period, including Castle Williams on Governors Island, Castle Clinton in lower Manhattan, and the star-shaped Fort Wood, which now forms the base of the Statue of Liberty.

Together these forts and batteries of the lower and upper harbor deterred attacks on one of the new nation's largest cities and most important ports.  Most of these historic fortifications still exist; some, such as Fort Wadsworth and Staten Island, are preserved by the National Park Service.

--Brock-Perry

Another Thomas Chambers Marine Painting-- Part 5

Another painting by Thomas Chambers was "New York Harbor with Castle Garden and ships," circa 1846.

Castle Clinton (Fort Clinton) was once known as Castle Garden, a circular sandstone fort now located at Battery Park in Manhattan, New York City.

It was the United States' first immigration station (predating Ellis Island) where more than eight million people arrived between 1855 and 1890.

--Brock-Perry

When New York City's Castle Clinton Was An Island

From the December 29, 2016 Tribeca Citizen "In the News:  When Castle Clinton Was an Island."

Castle Clinton was originally in New York Harbor, built on an artificial island and connected to the Battery by a small bridge.  It was built 1808-1811 in anticipation of a war with Britain.  Originally known as West Battery and intended to compliment the East Battery (Castle Williams) on Governors Island.

Neither fortress had any action against the British in the War of 1812, but there are those who believed the two served to deter the British from attacking New York City.

After the war, the West Battery water between the island and the mainland was absorbed by landfill and incorporated into the mainland of Manhattan Island and Battery Park.

It was renamed Castle Clinton in honor of New York's Governor DeWitt Clinton.

--Brock-Perry

HMS Hussar, Revolutionary War Ship-- Part 2: Victim of Hell's Gate

The HMS Hussar served in the American Revolution, mostly carrying dispatches along the American coast.  By the middle of 1779, the British position in New York City was growing increasingly precarious.  When Admiral Sir George Brydges Rogers took his  twenty ships-of-the-line south in November, it was decided that the Army payroll should be moved to anchorage at Gardineri Bay on eastern Long Island.

On 23 November 1780, against his pilot's judgement, Captain Charles Pole decided to sail the Hussar on the East River through the treacherous waters of Hell's Gate between Manhattan Island and Long Island.

The ship was swept onto Pot Rock and began sinking.  Unable to run his ship aground, Pole's ship sank on 29 meters of water.  Though the British denied it, rumors abounded that it was carrying between $2 to $4 million in gold which caused many salvage attempts despite the extreme difficulty of the wreck site which continued over the next 150 years.

--Brock-Perry

Remnant of War of 1812 Fortification Found In New York's Central Park-- Part 2

Other fortifications rebuilt included Fort Clinton, Nutter's Battery and Fort Fish.  But, fortunately, the British never came.  All the above mention fortifications are long gone except for those at McGowan's Pass, which still remain.

In 1990, the Conservancy worked with archaeologists to identify breastworks that have eroded over time at the pass.

On the north side of the pass, citizens drilled a line of holes into rock outcroppings.  Iron rods inserted in them could have helped build a wall linking the three small forts listed in the first paragraph.  These forts guarded the pass and surrounding countryside.

You can still see the holes.  They were recently found during reconstruction of the $2 million Fort Landscape Project in the north end of the park.Foundations of the southeast side of the gate house that had been constructed, almost like a bridge across McGowan's Pass over Kingsbridghe Road.  Evidence of the stone-splitting process known as plug-and-feather was used in the fort built atop rock they were composed of.

The northwest side of the gatehouse and part of the original Kingsbridge Road was also found.

And, You Didn't Think Much Happened in New York City During the War.  --Brock-Perry