Found: Old Wall in New York, and It's Blocking the Subway - New York Times
The New York Times
December 8, 2005
Found: Old Wall in New York, and It's Blocking the Subway
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
Three weeks after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority started digging a subway tunnel under Battery Park, the project hit a wall. A really old wall. Possibly the oldest wall still standing in Manhattan.
It was a 45-foot-long section of a stone wall that archaeologists believe is a remnant of the original battery that protected the Colonial settlement at the southern tip of the island. Depending on which archaeologist you ask, it was built in the 1760's or as long ago as the late 17th century.
Either way, it would be the oldest piece of a fortification known to exist in Manhattan and the only one to survive the Revolutionary War period, said Joan H. Geismar, president of the Professional Archaeologists of New York City.
"To my knowledge, it's the only remain of its kind in Manhattan," Ms. Geismar said. "It's a surviving Colonial military structure. That's what makes it unique."
Among the items found around the wall are a well-preserved halfpenny coin dated 1744 and shards of smoking pipes and Delft pottery, said Amanda Sutphin, director of archaeology for the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission.
"It's one of the most important archaeological discoveries in several decades in New York City," said Adrian Benepe, commissioner of the city's Department of Parks and Recreation. "Everybody knows that the Bronx is up and the Battery's down. But I don't think anybody anticipated that the Battery was 10 feet down."
Some city officials are excited about the discovery because of what it might teach historians and tourists about life in New York under British rule.
But its discovery has posed a problem for transit officials, who are in a hurry to replace the 100-year-old South Ferry station.
Ms. Geismar and other archaeologists said it was too soon to say exactly when the wall was built or by whom. Most likely, it is the base of a barrier at what was then the shoreline, built to protect soldiers as they fired guns and cannons at attacking ships, they said.
Several historians and archaeologists interviewed about the find said they did not have enough information to compare its significance with other discoveries in Lower Manhattan. In 1979, the walls of the Lovelace Tavern, which was built in 1670, were found during excavation for the building at 85 Broad Street that now serves as the headquarters of Goldman Sachs. And in 1991, digging for a federal building a block north of City Hall turned up the African Burial Ground that dates from the early 1700's. In both cases, at least some of the remains were preserved.
A battery wall appears on maps from the 1760's, but some archaeologists said they have a hunch that this wall may predate that one by as much as 60 years. Some say the discovery of the coin near the base dates it to at least the 1740's. There is no way to tell for sure exactly how old the wall is, but the archaeologists want to study the material in and around it.
What is clear about the battery wall, which sits on bedrock about nine feet below street level, is that it is in the way of the transportation authority's plan to build a section of tunnel for the No. 1 train that will connect to a new South Ferry station.
The authority planned to spend about $400 million on the project, which began in late 2004 and is scheduled to be completed in two years. The money came from the Federal Transit Administration after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.
But the authority has not estimated how much the discovery will add to the cost of the project or to its duration, said Tom Kelly, an M.T.A. spokesman.
"It's premature to discuss this thing at all, other than to say that we have made this find and we are protecting it," Mr. Kelly said.
The authority's handling of the site has already rankled some preservationists.
When an excavation crew discovered the eight-foot-thick wall in early November, it was one continuous stretch of cut and mortared stones about 45 feet long, archaeologists familiar with the project said. But pictures and drawings produced by the authority's employees show that the wall is now in two smaller pieces about 10 feet apart. The gap, the archaeologists said, was created by the steel claw of a backhoe before they could halt work at the site.
For the past month, work on the tunnel there has been at a standstill while officials of the various city agencies involved have debated how to proceed with construction of the tunnel while preserving some or all of the wall.
The authority's contractor on the project, Schiavone Construction of Secaucus, N.J., was being paid extra to complete its work in Battery Park quickly so that the park could reopen by summer. In exchange for the right to tear up the park, the authority agreed to spend more than $10 million cleaning up the mess and helping to reconfigure the park as the Parks Department has envisioned. That redesign would include a new bicycle path to link the riverfront on the east and west sides.
But the contractor is already a few weeks behind schedule, and engineers are concerned about a prolonged delay. One idea the authority floated was to remove a three-foot-long section of the wall to be preserved elsewhere, then plow ahead with the excavation.
Mr. Benepe and Robert B. Tierney, the chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, said they had been assured that no decisions had been reached on the matter.
"I'll talk to Parks about that and look at the options and see how much could be and should be preserved," Mr. Tierney said.
The unease among the various officials was apparent yesterday when archaeologists from the preservation commission and representatives of the Parks Department arrived at the site, which has been cordoned off with a plywood fence. A group of officials from the transportation authority's Capital Corporation turned the visitors away, telling them that the wall had been hidden under wooden planks that could not easily be lifted.
That response came as a surprise to the Parks Department representatives who were preparing to hold a news conference there today with remarks provided by officials including Mr. Benepe and Katherine N. Lapp, the executive director of the transportation authority.
Late yesterday, the various agencies said two planks would be removed to provide a glimpse of the wall, and the news conference today would go on without Ms. Lapp.
The squabbling did not dampen the enthusiasm of the preservationists.
"This is thrilling," said Warrie Price, president of the Battery Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that supports revitalization of the Battery. Ms. Price added that she hoped the wall could be reconstructed, at least in part, above ground in the park.
"If these stones are able to be reused," she said, "it would be wonderful to be able to actually touch this history."
* Copyright 2005The New York Times Company
Link to Article Source
December 8, 2005
Found: Old Wall in New York, and It's Blocking the Subway
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
Three weeks after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority started digging a subway tunnel under Battery Park, the project hit a wall. A really old wall. Possibly the oldest wall still standing in Manhattan.
It was a 45-foot-long section of a stone wall that archaeologists believe is a remnant of the original battery that protected the Colonial settlement at the southern tip of the island. Depending on which archaeologist you ask, it was built in the 1760's or as long ago as the late 17th century.
Either way, it would be the oldest piece of a fortification known to exist in Manhattan and the only one to survive the Revolutionary War period, said Joan H. Geismar, president of the Professional Archaeologists of New York City.
"To my knowledge, it's the only remain of its kind in Manhattan," Ms. Geismar said. "It's a surviving Colonial military structure. That's what makes it unique."
Among the items found around the wall are a well-preserved halfpenny coin dated 1744 and shards of smoking pipes and Delft pottery, said Amanda Sutphin, director of archaeology for the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission.
"It's one of the most important archaeological discoveries in several decades in New York City," said Adrian Benepe, commissioner of the city's Department of Parks and Recreation. "Everybody knows that the Bronx is up and the Battery's down. But I don't think anybody anticipated that the Battery was 10 feet down."
Some city officials are excited about the discovery because of what it might teach historians and tourists about life in New York under British rule.
But its discovery has posed a problem for transit officials, who are in a hurry to replace the 100-year-old South Ferry station.
Ms. Geismar and other archaeologists said it was too soon to say exactly when the wall was built or by whom. Most likely, it is the base of a barrier at what was then the shoreline, built to protect soldiers as they fired guns and cannons at attacking ships, they said.
Several historians and archaeologists interviewed about the find said they did not have enough information to compare its significance with other discoveries in Lower Manhattan. In 1979, the walls of the Lovelace Tavern, which was built in 1670, were found during excavation for the building at 85 Broad Street that now serves as the headquarters of Goldman Sachs. And in 1991, digging for a federal building a block north of City Hall turned up the African Burial Ground that dates from the early 1700's. In both cases, at least some of the remains were preserved.
A battery wall appears on maps from the 1760's, but some archaeologists said they have a hunch that this wall may predate that one by as much as 60 years. Some say the discovery of the coin near the base dates it to at least the 1740's. There is no way to tell for sure exactly how old the wall is, but the archaeologists want to study the material in and around it.
What is clear about the battery wall, which sits on bedrock about nine feet below street level, is that it is in the way of the transportation authority's plan to build a section of tunnel for the No. 1 train that will connect to a new South Ferry station.
The authority planned to spend about $400 million on the project, which began in late 2004 and is scheduled to be completed in two years. The money came from the Federal Transit Administration after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.
But the authority has not estimated how much the discovery will add to the cost of the project or to its duration, said Tom Kelly, an M.T.A. spokesman.
"It's premature to discuss this thing at all, other than to say that we have made this find and we are protecting it," Mr. Kelly said.
The authority's handling of the site has already rankled some preservationists.
When an excavation crew discovered the eight-foot-thick wall in early November, it was one continuous stretch of cut and mortared stones about 45 feet long, archaeologists familiar with the project said. But pictures and drawings produced by the authority's employees show that the wall is now in two smaller pieces about 10 feet apart. The gap, the archaeologists said, was created by the steel claw of a backhoe before they could halt work at the site.
For the past month, work on the tunnel there has been at a standstill while officials of the various city agencies involved have debated how to proceed with construction of the tunnel while preserving some or all of the wall.
The authority's contractor on the project, Schiavone Construction of Secaucus, N.J., was being paid extra to complete its work in Battery Park quickly so that the park could reopen by summer. In exchange for the right to tear up the park, the authority agreed to spend more than $10 million cleaning up the mess and helping to reconfigure the park as the Parks Department has envisioned. That redesign would include a new bicycle path to link the riverfront on the east and west sides.
But the contractor is already a few weeks behind schedule, and engineers are concerned about a prolonged delay. One idea the authority floated was to remove a three-foot-long section of the wall to be preserved elsewhere, then plow ahead with the excavation.
Mr. Benepe and Robert B. Tierney, the chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, said they had been assured that no decisions had been reached on the matter.
"I'll talk to Parks about that and look at the options and see how much could be and should be preserved," Mr. Tierney said.
The unease among the various officials was apparent yesterday when archaeologists from the preservation commission and representatives of the Parks Department arrived at the site, which has been cordoned off with a plywood fence. A group of officials from the transportation authority's Capital Corporation turned the visitors away, telling them that the wall had been hidden under wooden planks that could not easily be lifted.
That response came as a surprise to the Parks Department representatives who were preparing to hold a news conference there today with remarks provided by officials including Mr. Benepe and Katherine N. Lapp, the executive director of the transportation authority.
Late yesterday, the various agencies said two planks would be removed to provide a glimpse of the wall, and the news conference today would go on without Ms. Lapp.
The squabbling did not dampen the enthusiasm of the preservationists.
"This is thrilling," said Warrie Price, president of the Battery Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that supports revitalization of the Battery. Ms. Price added that she hoped the wall could be reconstructed, at least in part, above ground in the park.
"If these stones are able to be reused," she said, "it would be wonderful to be able to actually touch this history."
* Copyright 2005The New York Times Company
Link to Article Source
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