Authors: Linda Fairstein
Iwas trying to keep up with Mercer, who was trailing behind
Mike. He had turned right at the top of the hill and was leading us
on the uneven cobblestone path that paralleled the seawall along
the edge of the island.
“Think military, Mercer. I'll tell you everything I remember
about this place and see if that gives you any ideas, okay?”
A light drizzle began to fall. Off to our right, the river's
water darkened and swirled. To our left was a low brick building
more than a city block long.
“What's that?” Mercer asked. “Built as an arsenal.”
“Like Bannerman?” I asked.
“This one was done by the government in the early 1800s. Held
all the arms and ammo for army posts on the entire Atlantic coast,”
Mike said, jogging up to the building to peek in several windows.
“Closed up pretty tight. When the army shut down, this became
administrative offices. Looks like it's still in use and too near
the ferry landing to be a viable hiding place.”
The three of us kept up our fast-paced march, moving out into a
wide open space with stunning views of Staten Island and New Jersey
that made the strategic setting of this forgotten island crystal
clear to me. The wind gusted and I held on to the metal fence that
bordered the water, just below my feet.
“Can you see why this island was so coveted by every military
leader who saw it?” Mike asked, sweeping his arm in a large
semicircle across the vista. “It's the single most important
vantage point for the protection of New York Harbor.”
“We're below Manhattan,” I said, looking back at the most
perfect view of the mist-covered skyline. “We're south of it.”
“Get yourself a map, Coop,” Mike said, shaking his head. “The
Lower Bay is beyond Brooklyn. This is the world's busiest harbor
and Governors Island controls the access to the entire thing. And
to New Jersey's coastline as well. The Dutch practically stole
this from the Indians to build a fort here to keep all comers away,
even before they settled on the mainland. Fort Amsterdam. Henry
Hudson and his Half Moon were the first Europeans to
discover it, in 1609. It was Pagganck to the Indians, Nooten
Island to the Dutch. Full of nut trees-that's what the Indians had
going for them. Quiet little place before the Europeans
arrived.”
“Then the Dutch lost it to the British?” Mercer asked.
“In 1664. The Big Apple became New York, and this island wound
up as the home of His Majesty's governors, till the British
military had the brainstorm to use it as a base during the French
and Indian Wars. ”Like I said, it was Washington who sent the first
thousand men here, under General Israel Putnam, 1776. But the
British army whipped George's troops in the Battle of Brooklyn-the
earliest engagement of the American army with British forces. Most
war theorists think if their navy had attacked this little island,
the British could have ended the Revolution right then. But the
tides were too strong and the weather was too nasty for an
invasion here. So Washington's men destroyed their own cannons and
retreated, leaving this place to the British, till their
occupation of New York City ended in 1783."
I lifted my collar against the wind and light rain and started
to turn away.
Mike stepped behind me and put his hands on my shoulders,
pointing off in the distance. “But by 1800, Washington had
convinced the government to take control of this harbor, along
with Bedloe's Island-see it over there? That's where the Statue of
Liberty is now, and that's Ellis Island, off in the distance. Over
there is Castle Clinton, on the Battery. His plan was to use each
of these points around this critically important harbor to build a
defense system to protect against for eign invasion.”
Mercer got it now. “So there were forts on every one of
them.”
“Exactly. At the base of Liberty was Fort Hood, and Ellis Island
used to be Fort Gibson.”
My eyes followed his finger. “Then there's Castle Clinton, on
the Battery, named for one of New York's governors, DeWitt
Clinton. See, only one story tall? The government ran out of
money, so they never completed it. Now turn around.”
Behind us was a massive red sandstone fortress, a great circular
watchtower looming over the bay from the northwest corner of the
island, three stories high with a huge parapet at the top.
“The jewel in the coastal defense crown,” Mike said. “Castle
Williams.”
“Who was Williams?” I asked.
“Who's it named for?”
“Jonathan Williams. The guy who designed this fort. He was also
the first superintendent of West Point.”
“Add that to your list. Another little West Point factoid that
might play into the others.” Mercer walked away and was standing
at the entrance to Castle Williams. “The gate is open,” he said to
us, and we followed after him.
The grounds of the building were trim and well kept. At regular
intervals around the seemingly impenetrable sandstone walls, there
were three columns of casement windows, twenty-six rows of them
ringing the building. The largest ones were nearest to the ground,
getting smaller toward the top. Each had been fitted with cannons,
the tips of some still visible as we approached.
Mercer entered the castle first and led us through its thick,
dank walls into the middle of the fort, which had no roof. It was
shaped like a giant horseshoe, with its solid front facing the
rocky shoal and a small opening to its rear. I turned in place,
looking up at the three tiers of galleries and the parapet above
them, which housed a cluster of gi ant black cannons, still poised
over the waters of the bay. Mercer spotted the iron bars in the
doorways of the rooms that fronted the courtyard. He went over to
one and pulled on the modern padlock that was looped around the
old metal hinge.
“Looks more like a jailhouse,” he said.
There were at least a dozen such doors, and we took turns
testing the locks on each as we moved around the large interior
space.
“You got that right,” Mike said. "By the middle of the
nineteenth century, these fixed cannon positions had become pretty
obsolete.
There were all kinds of artillery that was more mobile and had
longer range, even on the ships. That's when the army set up the
arsenal here and invented other uses for the island. Bet you
didn't know that General Winfield Scott made this the headquarters
of the entire U.S. Army in the 1840s before the Mexican War."
“I count on you for all things military,” Mercer said.
“Well, during the Civil War, this fortress became a prison for
Confederate soldiers. Some fifteen hundred of them crammed into
these makeshift cells at a time, many of them awaiting execution
on espionage charges. Executions that took place right in this very
courtyard, so the other prisoners could watch. Our own little
Devil's Island.”
“Why here?” I asked.
“ 'Cause there's no way out of this place, Coop. The walls are
forty feet high and eight feet thick. The only exit is that
once-barred gatehouse we came in through. If the rebels were
successful at firing into Castle Williams from the water, the
people that would be killed were their own comrades.”
“Awfully bleak place,” Mercer said, continuing to test each
lock. “After the Civil War it became a military stockade.”
“So this was to the East Coast what Leavenworth and Alcatraz
were to the rest of the country? Right here in New York?” Mercer
asked. “I never knew it.”
“Where's your list, Coop?” Mike said.
I took a notepad and pen out of my pocket.
“We've got to find out who has the keys to these locks,” he
said.
“What's kept in here and when's the last time anyone's been in
these cells.”
Mercer had found the staircase that led to the upper tiers. I
watched him climb and walk to the door of each pen, checking that
the locks were secured.
“Anything open?” Mike asked. “Any sign of life?”
“Nope.”
“You know, seeing these cells reminds me that somewhere on this
island there was a black hole,” Mike said.
“What do you mean? Like Pablo Posano's cell?” I said, thinking
of my gang leader rapist, confined upstate with no outside
communications allowed.
“Yeah. And like that bunker under the floorboards at Bannerman's
house.”
“Why do you call it a black hole?”
“ 'Cause that's what the expression came from-long before
astronomers figured that there were great voids in space, Coop. The
black hole of Calcutta? In 1756, the nawab of Bengal threw
hundreds of British soldiers in a dungeon, and half of them died
there. I'm telling you, during the War of 1812, the most dangerous
prisoners were kept in solitary confinement here on Governors
Island, in what the troops called a black hole. Now we just have
to find it.”
Mercer emerged from the stairwell. “Every one of the cells is
closed up tight. Let's move on.”
We passed out through the thick walls of the entryway and onto a
smooth black asphalt road that led away from the water, to the
interior part of the island. There was still no sign of Russell
Leamer or any of his reinforcements.
We were all conscious that the time was near for the mayor's
press conference and that any information we might gather would
come too late to be useful.
“On the right, that's the post hospital,” Mike said.
We approached it together, climbing the imposing double
staircase that led up to the front door of the elegant four-story
brick building, so incongruous beside the old fortress just a
couple of hundred yards away.
Mercer reached the top first and pulled repeatedly on the large
brass door handles. “Locked. No give at all.”
We were back down the steps in seconds and split up-I followed
Mercer in a jog around the building-to check for broken windows or
signs of entry, but there were none.
The main roadway veered to the left, and suddenly we were facing
a magnificent tree-lined block of elegant brick mansions that
could have been lifted out of Main Street in any prosperous small
town in America. A beautiful grassy area and promenade surrounded
the private homes. Elms and ginkgo trees bordered the structures
like silent sentries.
“Colonels' Row,” Mike said. “Built a century ago to improve the
quality of life for the officers and their families who were
stationed here.”
The drizzle was steady now, and Mike ran up and down the paths
and front steps of the first couple of houses while Mercer and I
waited on the road for him.
“Damn it,” he said. "I forgot how many of these homes were
here.
We'll have to get some uniformed backup to get into every one of
them during the next week."
“You don't think the guys from Night Watch checked this out, the
morning after Amber's body was found?” I asked.
Mike looked at Mercer and shook his head. “I'm sure they gave it
the once-over, but at that point there was no reason to think that
the Battery Maritime Building was anything but an abandoned
dumping ground for a dead girl.”
While not pristine and certainly not lived in, the homes were
fairly well maintained. It looked like with a fresh coat of paint
and some basic landscaping, families could move back in and set up
housekeeping almost at once.
“Why did they continue to build military housing here, even
after the fortress was obsolete?” I asked, as Mike picked up his
pace.
“Because this little island played a part in every single war
America fought until the army closed the place down. The
Revolution, the Seminole War, the war with Mexico, the Civil War,
the Spanish-American War.” He was spitting out the names faster
than he could walk. “It was a major embarkation point of American
troops during World War I, and even the most important New York
induction center in World War II.”
Opposite the far end of Colonels' Row was another massive brick
building, fronting on the south end of the historic property.
“Liggett Hall,” Mike said. “Designed by one of New York's most
famous architectural firms-McKim, Mead and White. Built to house an
entire regiment-more than a thousand troops.”
The dead quiet of the island was broken by the sound of a siren
wailing in the distance. “Where's that coming from, do you think?”
Mike laughed dismissively. “Maybe the feds ferried over in full
force. C'mon. Let's get a sense of what's got to be done before
they get in my face.”
He cut across the roadway, beginning to huff a bit as we jogged
up a slight incline.
Then he stopped to get his bearings, leaning on the vertical
bars of a tremendous old navigation buoy about twenty feet high.
“Down there is the South Battery. It faces on the narrow waterway
that separates Governors Island from Brooklyn. Its bell was meant
to keep enemy ships out of Buttermilk Channel, on the back side of
the island.”
The sound of the siren seemed to be getting closer.
“Come this way,” Mike said, waving me off the roadway. Adjacent
to the buoy, I passed the entrance to a small white shingled
building, a Roman Catholic church named Our Lady Star of the Sea.
This island outpost had all the makings of a small village. But
across the way was an entirely jarring structure. It was of more
recent vintage, and the dilapidated sign on top of the structure
said SU- PER 8 MOTEL.
Mike and Mercer loped straight past the eyesore, and seconds
later I was standing at the edge of another beautifully laid-out
park, with a huge central green. Around it were a dozen wood
houses, much older than the brick mansions of Colonels' Row. Each
of them was painted a pale yellow with white trim, and each had a
yard dotted with horse chestnut and maple trees
Nolan Park,“ Mike said. ”The oldest houses on the island. These
are where the generals were quartered. Ulysses S. Grant himself.
And what they called the Governor's House is right up there, too.
The sirens were drowning out Mike's voice.