Fort Tompkins
Fort Wadsworth | built 1931
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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.
- 1814
Work begins on a sandstone fort on the site during the War of 1812
With war against Britain under way again, every sea approach to the city was fortified, and in 1814 construction started on a sandstone fort where Fort Tompkins now stands. That earlier fort stood until 1847, and some of its sandstone was later reused to face the cut hillside behind the present granite fort.
“In 1814, construction of a sandstone fort on the site of Fort Tompkins was begun. This fort stood until 1847…”
- 1847
The federal government begins the present granite fort under the Third System
In 1847 federal builders started the granite Fort Tompkins, part of the Third or Totten System of seacoast defenses named for engineer Joseph Gilbert Totten. The long, low, polygonal fort sits on a platform cut into the eastern side of the hill, with gun casemates dug into the slope and the cut face lined with rough granite and stone salvaged from the older fort. It was completed in 1861.
- 1861
The first troops are garrisoned at the new forts on the Narrows
The Narrows reservation passed from New York State to federal control in 1847, after the old forts had been declared unfit in 1835. Work on the present fort and the neighboring Battery Weed took fourteen years, and the first troops moved in on August 8, 1861.
- 1974
Fort Tompkins is designated a city landmark while still an Army post
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated Fort Tompkins on September 24, 1974, after a hearing the year before at which one witness spoke in favor and a U.S. Army representative described the fort's status. The commission called it part of the oldest continuously manned military installation in the country.
- 1994
Fort Wadsworth closes and Fort Tompkins becomes part of Gateway National Recreation Area
Fort Wadsworth, the reservation that includes Fort Tompkins, was decommissioned in 1994 after serving in the twentieth century as an Army post, an Army chaplains' school and finally a naval base. The grounds are now part of Gateway National Recreation Area, and park rangers lead occasional tours of the ruins of Fort Tompkins on the hill above the beach.
Source: atlasobscura.com
Further reading
- Fort TompkinsWikipedia
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