marilyn and i got the park ranger to take us deep inside the fort totten batteries.
fort totten overlooks the long island sound by the throggs next bridge in bayside queens.
it was built in 1857 and with fort schuyler in the bronx protected nyc from any attack from the long island sound.
it served as a nike missle base during the cold war .
its been through all the major wars from the civil war on without ever firing a shot in combat.
it was constructed out of granite rock but by the late 1800's rifled artillary shells were able to do serious damage to the walls so that put an end to anymore construction of the fort.
if you notice in one of the photos the fort was tested by hitting it with cannon balls. it made marks in the wall as you can see in the photos below.
later on it was tested with rifled artillary rounds and you can see the shell still buried deep in the wall.
it has an intricate system of tunnels. in fact one leads out under the bay where a man could manually detonate a grid of mines if need be during the spanish american war.
a warning shot fired over the bow of a ship over shot the bow and hit fort schuyler on the other side. the damage can be seen today in the wall.
the poweder storage room is made out of all brick so if hit it would not try to contain the explosion as granite would.if you watch their website they
list the dates of the tours.
its worth taking the tour if you get the chance ,lots of history in that fort. its rare your get to go inside that area as its off limits and locked.
http://queens.about.com/od/parks/a/fort-totten.htm
http://www.forttotten.org/
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