Fort Schuyler - History

History

Fort Schuyler was one of many forts built along the east coast of the United States in the aftermath of the War of 1812, when it became brutally apparent that the U.S. coast was poorly defended against foreign invasion. Fort Schuyler was dedicated in 1856 after only 75% completion. The fort was strategically positioned to protect New York City from naval attack through Long Island Sound, guarding the eastern entrance to New York Harbor. It is located on Throgs Neck, the southeastern tip of the Bronx, where the East River meets Long Island Sound. Fort Totten faces it on the opposite side of the river. Their interlocking batteries created a bottle-neck of defenses against ships attempting to approach New York City.

Fort Schuyler, at its peak, boasted 440 guns. Later, it would be fitted with various other pieces throughout the ever-modernization of coastal defense artillery, once including 10-inch and 12-inch guns on disappearing carriages installed on the roof and on the peninsula around the fort. Coastal artillery emplacements at the fort lasted until 1935.

Read more about this topic:  Fort Schuyler

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who are also creating their own time refuse to accept.... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling.
    Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)

    There is no example in history of a revolutionary movement involving such gigantic masses being so bloodless.
    Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)

    Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.
    John Dos Passos (1896–1970)