Twin Doozies

Once I worked for a company in the World Trade Center, Ebasco, a Texas based energy company, supplied plans for power plants. It once had a spare "containment vessel" they needed to unload, 10" thick of alloy steel a couple of a hundred feet in diameter it went by barge somewhere. The division, part of five upper floors in one of the World Trade Center towers, Envirosphere, had the contract to do the initial survey and study of the environs of Fort Drum, NY where the US Army's 10th Mountain Division (former Senator Dole's WWII Italy campaign) was to be relocated from Camp Hale, Colorado. The former "Pine Camp" was to go from a temporary use for the National Guard, stationary tank fire exercise area for Fort Knox, Kentucky, A-10 "Warthog" "tank killer" target range for the then Syracuse based wing, EOD (explosive ordnance disposal, began by the British as "UXO") area, and the winter training of Army troops, to then become a permanent facility of 7,000 troops and auxiliary people (families, etc.). Over 110,000 acres of former fields and woods of 10,000 people moved just after WWII from the facility, presented some interesting archaeology problems and questions, once the site of four "bog iron" foundries, a palisaded native village and other sites (prehistoric site on the Black River, once part of the Erie Canal system, cemeteries, cheese factories, barns, house foundations, etc.) all wooden structures demolished back in 1945 or so. We were trying to shovel test 2% of the properties for possible recovery of former sites and potential for additional sites while policy was trying to be decided. It was also said to be the once future domicile of Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Joseph, at "Alpina", near what is today Lake Bonaparte and Carthage, NY. Many French settled and worked in Northern New York State the roadside sign informs me, as does the architecture of many places nearby, i.e., Cape Vincent. Ebasco later moved (to East Orange, NJ) as many did from the WTC. Other projects I have worked on have been indirectly the result of the re-thinking of the WTC. At one time all, for example, Social Security cases (I had a S.S. card replaced there) and other social services were there, centralized. I read that instead of the people coming to a center, it was changed in the 1980's for the services to be where the people are, so, for example, the very large GSA building (Government Services Administration) was another site I worked on with others in archaeology. Built across the street from the old Dutch Reformed Church, (built in the mid-18th century) it would be a new "anchor" to the downtown of Jamaica, Queens with a new subway station, Archer Ave. built. Across the street is now a "Magic Johnson Multiplex" which shows a history short of NYC for $1. Less than a block away from the GSA building, is the Rufus King Manor, historic site, who was the "...last Federalist, signer of the Constitution, our first Ambassador to England, etc.". It was later a residence of a Senator (State ?). I worked on "Rufus King" a number of times, in archaeology, for different people, as the park and grounds were upgraded. Recently a borough Family Court opened across the street from the Manor, there on Montauk Highway. Perhaps all these plans for moving precipitated in singer actor Bernadette Peters (whose debut was on the Bowery, in "Anything Goes" another area I've had to research for archaeology) being hired to invite people to visit the top of World Trade Center in a radio spot. Worked for me. Other times were scarier there, my friend compiling data for the survey of Fort Drum said, everyone was sent home one windy day over concern that the elevator shafts would go out of alignment she said. I never liked it much no lighting in the stairways then, my neighbor where I grew up a building inspector for the State of New York, Mr. Hlinka. His sons went on to teach high school science and work for NASA in Florida. I knew another in CT, who found all the electrical outlets in the Knights of Columbus headquarters replaced with cheaper, non-spec ones, about $100,000 embezzlement. Whatever, I hope they finally follow NYC code there. I was much later, surprised, that is back working at Madison Barracks at Sackett's Harbor, NY near Watertown and Fort Drum, NY, by an "Aer Lingus" 747 jet landing at the Watertown, NY "airport" with prisoners for the new prison at Cape Vincent from NYC. Surprised I say, as I was standing there with Angela Schuster (an editor at "Archaeology" magazine) and her husband, who own a small restored plane they fly in and he had just flown in. We were next to the small hanger and empty "terminal" building (smaller than most high school lobbies I'd imagine) and this massive green and white 747 jet flies in and a Dept. Of Corrections bus with bars drives out to it! I'm not sure about the fire-fighting equipment there it seems there was nothing there in case of an emergency like "Conair" or something. Turns out, it was the first of a number of "contract" flights. Another employee in an engineering company in the World Trade Center, was an engineer grad of Stony Brook U., a Mr. Roe, who once showed me the remains of what was (at the time), called one of the tallest windmills in the US, on the famous architect's place, the Stanford White Estate in Nissequogue, NY (named after the river in Smithtown and near The Museums at Stony Brook) and its bulldozed metal stanchions, once cast in a foundry in Baltimore. Built near the shore, a path along the shore runs there, it's said to have pumped water for I think a reservoir by the "squash court" (?). The tower, once covered in shingles, burned down around 1961. With its large circular fan blade ("Scientific American") it's written it served as a landmark to those who sailed on Long Island Sound between NY and CT. I once met him on the LIRR train going to work when I used to catch the 6:01 AM out of Ronkonkoma to work in NYC archaeology, then in the financial district, off Whitehall St. The former Whitehall Induction Center, (mentioned in "Alice's Restaurant" by native NYC singer/songwriter Arlo Guthrie, son of Woodie Guthrie, probably visited by over a million men or more) seemed to still have the hole I think from where it had been bombed twice during the last military draft) building was being stripped of its external features and skinned in a modern steel and glass "skin" ("new brutalism"?) to "fit in" with other buildings it seems, and became one of the new NY Athletic Clubs in the go-go '80's.