South Battery (Building 298, Corbin Hall)

298 Governors Island | also 140 Carder Road | Governors Island | built 1900

Open on the map3 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1812

    The Army builds the South Battery to guard Buttermilk Channel against a British harbor invasion

    The South Battery was the third part of Governors Island's defenses, alongside Fort Jay and Castle Williams, built before the War of 1812. It was an arrowhead-shaped red sandstone work with thirteen cannon on an open parapet, and it covered the channel separating the island from Brooklyn. Army engineers followed designs by Lt. Col. Jonathan Williams.

    “…designed to guard against a harbor invasion by way of Buttermilk Channel, which separates the island from Brooklyn. It had an arrowhead shape with thirteen cannon…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1878

    The old battery becomes an officers' mess hall and Catholic chapel, later court-martial rooms

    In the 1840s a one-story barracks went up inside the battery, and a second story was added before 1863. The building housed non-commissioned staff until 1878, when it became an officers' mess hall, with part given over to a Catholic chapel. Court-martial rooms were in the building by the mid-1880s, and a 1904 remodeling turned it into an amusement and lecture hall for enlisted men.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1936

    WPA workers rebuild the second floor as Corbin Hall, soon the Officers' Club

    In 1936-37 the Works Progress Administration rebuilt the upper story of the former South Battery as Corbin Hall, adding neo-Georgian detail on the new work. The red sandstone fortification wall still forms the lower level, topped by a brick cross-gabled structure laid in Flemish bond. By 1939 the building served as the Officers' Club, and it was still used that way when the district was designated in 1996.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

All 81 buildings with stories in Governors Island