6. Fort Jay

Location: Governors Island
Built: 1806-1809
Architect: Lt. Col. Jonathan Williams
National Register Number: 74001268
Listed: March 27, 1974
Visited: July 21, 2007



From space, a stolid five-point-star fortification. Up close, its scale is so enormous that the few people on the island can't make the spaces surrounding the non-descript interior barracks feel anything but desolate. It's the middle of the afternoon and yet a walk around the zigzagging moat, now with mowed grass instead of water, is spookily hushed. Only dragonflies pass by.

5. Castle Williams

Location: Governors Island
Built: 1807-1811
Architect: Lt. Col. Jonathan Williams
National Register Number: 72000863
Listed: July 31, 1972
Visited: July 21, 2007



Joe Schumacher: "Built to protect the city from the British in 1812. [Castle Williams], along with Castle Clinton on Manhattan, was so successful the British decided to burn a different city further south." Ha ha ha. (That city being, of course, Washington, DC.) In contrast to Castle Clinton's sexy post-conflict history as an opera house, immigration center, and after a handsome McKim, Mead & White renovation, aquarium, Castle Williams has only been given unglamorous adaptive re-uses by the military, including a prison. There's a campaign to convert it into a new Globe Theater, based on the designs of Foster + Partners, they of The Gherkin, The Glass Testicle, and uuuuhhh the Hearst Tower which is awesomely green but has no cute nickname. Great buildings all (I'm easily distracted by glitter), but I'm less positive about the design for this theater -- much as a new Globe is an alluring possibility (though is New York City lacking in dramatic venues?), every rendering occludes the fort's rustic red sandstone features and imposing profile.

Jonathan Williams gave his name not only to this fort but to Williamsburgh in Brooklyn. So you know he was a total dude.

4. The Block House

Location: Governors Island
Built: 1839
Architect: Unknown
National Register Number: 72000863
Listed: July 24, 1972
Visited: July 21, 2007



The Block House, another austere brick building, is also underused: it's locked up just like the Governor's House. I fling around the word "underused" too haughtily, though: after visiting a few more locked-up or unfurnished buildings, it's not clear to me how these buildings could be used in any historically-sensitive way. All the landmarked residences were built in multiple eras and had multiple purposes throughout the last 150-200 years (The Brick House, for example, during different eras served as a hospital, a prison, army headquarters, and apartments), with no particular era or purpose inherently more fascinating (or representative) than any other, and thus each building has no single historical fact they can illustrate and no single state they should be restored to.

3. The Admiral's House

Location: Governors Island
Built: 1843
Architect: Martin E. Thompson
National Register Number: 72000860
Listed: July 24, 1972
Visited: July 21, 2007



The next landmark on my list, The Admiral's House, is only two houses away. This building housed an impressive list of generals including Bradley, Pershing, and Winfeld Scott. Reagan and Gorbachev had a lunch here in late 1988. Even without prompting, I remember photos of the summit with unusual vividness: with this event, Reagan was effortlessly summarizing his legacy, Bush was trying to carrying the torch, and Gorbachev was assuring the world that everything was going to rock from now on, and all three were smiling.

This is the most impressive residential building on the island, fronted by a porch with six lithe columns, behind which sits a lady with the Park Service. As I walk in, she's fielding a question from another tourist, but dutifully interrupts her answer to make sure she gives me a welcome. Inside is a ring of rooms painted in various pastels, all empty save for displays of artwork from high school students taught on the island, and while I find no fault on the kids and their artwork, this is still a lame effort towards eye-wash that only underscores how underused the building is.

2. Governor's House

Location: Governors Island
Built: ca. 1805-1813
Architect: Unknown
National Register Number: 73001217
Listed: April 26, 1973
Visited: July 21, 2007



As of summer 2007, you have to get there via a seven-minute ferry ride. The crowd going to Governors Island skews older than the one going to the Statue of Liberty or Rockefeller Center or the Empire State Building, a function of the site's low profile and lack of kid appeal. There's really little to do on the island at the moment. Once there, it feels like a giant college campus, emptied for the summer season, perfect for a wander. Quiet descends upon the ears like almost no place in Manhattan, not even Central Park. A curious lack of wildlife, though: many trees, London Planes shedding crunchy bark like mad, yet I didn't see a single squirrel, and very few birds save for the inevitable pigeons and a lonesome songbird or two calling out in vain. Walking up a quaint set of stairs abutting a building, I get distracted by a butterfly and I'm suddenly facing the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission's plaque for the Governor's House. A-ha! This is a relief: I figured it'd take longer to find this building because it wasn't marked on the complimentary map.

The plaque says the Governor's House was built in 1708, which would make it the oldest building in New York County; sadly, in one hell of an error correction, recent research has show it was actually built about a hundred years later. This is still old old old but no match for 273 Water Street (1781ish), The Morris-Jumel Mansion (1765), and tough motherfucker St. Paul's Chapel (1764-1766), not to mention Brooklyn's Pieter Claesen Wyckoff House (1652ish), the oldest building in the state.

Like many buildings on the island, it's built from a heterogeneous selection of bricks, reflecting several instances of repair and renovation. My guidebooks call describe it as "Georgian-style." I don't know what that means. Obviously I should. The front door is sealed with a mere hardware store lock, but for some reason a side window is open, revealing 20th century kitchen facilities. There's also a front window, closed but low enough to peek through. But there's nothing to see, save for a large tree branch inexplicably placed on the wood floor.

1. Governors Island National Monument

Location: Governors Island
Built: 1806-1811
Architect: Lt. Col. Jonathan Williams
National Register Number: 85002435
Listed: February 4, 1985
Visited: July 21, 2007



Governors Island sits in front of the city's eyes and the back of the city's mind. 172 acres of island in the middle of New York Harbor, it surrounds dense thickets of New Jersey, Manhattan, and Brooklyn urbanity. And yet the island shares none of it, cut off from the surrounding landmasses, and groomed for over two centuries as a center for British, then American military operations rather than civilian life. It's been almost entirely off-limits to the ordinary citizen until the US Coast Guard ceased operations there in 1996, and even after control of about 13% of the island was ceded to the National Park Service, with the remainder put under the aegis of New York State, public access has thus far been sporadic, seasonal. This will change, and soon. 42 acres on the southern part of the island will soon be subject to sweeping redevelopment by the State of New York.

Five proposals for use of the land were unveiled in June, with a winning design to be announced this month; all of them assume the complete demolition of the structures currently standing, to be replaced by parkland featuring things like artificial mountains and marshes, agriculture, sporting facilities, research centers, and the like. The historic district, including the National Monument (composed of Castle Williams, Fort Jay -- more about them later -- and a few ancillary buildings), won't be touched (though maybe spiffened up a bit), but once the park becomes a reality, the rest of the island will likely receive more interest, and cease to be open secret it is now.