To reach the beach at Fort Tilden, keep
the missile silos on your right, the munitions buildings on your left, and head
due south of the cannon batteries.
Remember this, because there are no signs to point the way, no scents of
sunscreen, lifeguard’s whistles nor flying Frisbees; just these military
landmarks, the briny breeze and the roar of the surf.
Once over the dunes, it may well be just you and a few stoic surfcasters there
with the gulls and terns swooping and flopping on the breeze. The only clue you
are still in New York City may be the hazy Manhattan skyline floating 10 miles
in the distance.
Most city beaches, Coney Island and City Island for example, have big crowds,
murky waters and plenty of Scene. Fort Tilden, a former Army base along the
ocean on the Rockaway peninsula, which dangles into the Atlantic Ocean off
Queens, is the opposite. It has wide-open and pristine sands, a fresh sea and a
rugged beachscape of barnacled bulkheads and sea-softened pilings jutting up out
of the sand.
Regulars at Fort Tilden smile to one another as if sharing a great little
secret. And they are.
It is not for everyone. It can be a bit of a hike to the water, and there are no
lifeguards. Visitors, in fact, are warned not to swim, because of the dangerous
tides. There are no convenient bathrooms, snack bars or other amenities. And as
for body-watching, there are not too many around — without wings and beaks,
anyway. The base, decommissioned in the early 1970’s, was turned over to the
National Park Service and is now part of the Gateway National Recreation Area.
The vestiges of Fort Tilden’s military history, nestled in its dunes and hidden
in the vines and pines and rugged coastal overgrowth, remain, beckoning to the
mildly curious and the slightly adventurous.
After the Nike nuclear missile silos (which are usually off-limits), the park’s
artillery centerpiece is a pair of huge concrete batteries built into high,
sandy bluffs: a surreal sight like something out of “Planet of the Apes.”
Years ago, each housed a 70-foot-long cannon that could accurately shoot
2,300-pound shells 25 miles out to sea. Other wartime structures, hiding in the
thick vegetation, begin to take shape: barracks, bunkers and underground
artillery shelters, as well as fortified observation rooms. It begins to sink in
that where you are now suntanning, soldiers once carefully covered the
waterfront to guard the city from enemy attack.
The fort, built in 1917 as part of the city’s coastal defenses, was used through
two world wars and part of the cold war to keep the enemy — German subs,
Japanese bombers or Russian nukes — from reaching New York.
“This place is like nowhere else in the world,” said Penelope Atheras, an artist
from Flatbush who creates sculptures in an old wood-frame military building now
used by the Rockaway Artists Alliance. “No matter how I’m feeling, as soon as I
get over that Marine Parkway Bridge, it’s like, ‘Ah, I’m free.’ ”
For the explorer, the treasures of Tilden truly unfold. The more you wander the
underused pathways of the park’s 317 acres, the more bizarre the place gets. At
Tilden you can do bombs and barracks, or beach blanket bingo. Or both.
It always amazes me how few beach-loving New Yorkers avail themselves of
Rockaway’s perfectly good ocean, which is reachable by a $2 ride on the A train
or city bus, or by car. In some places along the boardwalk, you can see all
types of New Yorkers served up on blankets, while other stretches are tumbleweed
empty.
I sometimes play hooky from my newspaper beat (covering Queens) and go AWOL onto
the base.
Last summer I took a $120-a-week room in the Baxter Hotel in nearby Rockaway
Park, a single-room-occupancy hotel on 116th Street just off the ocean with an
eccentric group of residents.
I would sit with the owner, John Baxter, and watch the inner city empty out of
the subway and head to the beach. One day recently Mr. Baxter lent me a bike and
took me through the back pathways of Fort Tilden. An Irishman from County Cavan,
Mr. Baxter fell in love with Tilden’s salty beauty and has walked his dogs there
every morning for decades.
Birdsong filled the fragrant air as we ducked low-hanging branches and vines and
avoided scampering rabbits. He steered off an asphalt road down a narrow, sandy
path that led to a huge concrete structure embedded in the sand and hidden by
foliage.
We squeezed through a hole in the heavy metal gate. With Mr. Baxter’s flashlight
we saw a series of concrete rooms that looked constructed for some specific
industrial uses. There were open shafts and concrete floors with strange
channels built into them, and rusted-out electrical boxes and devices, with huge
ventilation ducts. As in most of the buildings, there was graffiti inside, some
of it fresh.
We pedaled to another concrete structure, this one a simple rectangular chamber.
“There was someone living in there, but I guess they kicked him out,” Mr. Baxter
said. Along a road running right behind the dunes there was a concrete cube
accessible only by a ladder leading down a hole in the roof. Inside, a
six-inch-wide horizontal slit across the wall facing the ocean allowed a view of
the horizon.
But the most stunning structures are the two large concrete bunkers of Battery
Harris, built into tall sand dunes. Last year I saw an artist bike into Tilden
towing his easel on a cart so that he could paint a portrait of these eerie
amphitheaters facing the sea. They once housed antiaircraft guns and giant
cannons that were some of the biggest in the country when installed. The
batteries were fortified in 1939, to protect against bombing and so that they
wouldn’t be turned on New York City by an invading enemy, a heady fact to ponder
when you’re standing in a wet bathing suit.
Inside, the tracks still remain from the railroad connecting the battery to
storehouses and a supply wharf nearby on Rockaway Inlet.
Wooden steps lead to a modest wooden deck atop Battery Harris East, which
affords a 360-degree view of Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Atlantic. Out
there long lines of waves roll ashore and laden-down oil tankers creep westward
along the fuzzy horizon toward New York Harbor. Just down a sandy path from this
battery is a freshwater pond surrounded by reeds, and just eastward, a few paces
behind the dunes, are four silos that housed Nike nuclear missiles during the
cold war.
Defunct since 1972, the silos kept Ajax and Hercules missiles, which were never
fired in combat. The Hercules missiles were 40 feet long, weighed five tons each
and had a range of 90 miles. They could travel 2,300 miles per hour and
intercept a target in the stratosphere. They were equipped with warheads packing
twice the blast power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
The fort has a Nike missile, stripped of its warhead, as an ornament near the
park entrance. It sprouts from the lawn between a soccer net and the handicapped
parking spaces.
The four silos are now covered and cordoned off by a tired chain-link fence.
Dilapidated lifeguard chairs and picnic tables are scattered around. Where
missiles with 30-kiloton nuclear warheads once stood ready to launch,
butterflies now flutter.
Since parking at Tilden during the summer is by permit only, it is best to pay
the $5 to park next door at the Jacob Riis Park beach, a more populated spot
with lifeguards, and walk into the fort.
The ideal way to get around Fort Tilden is by bike, one that can handle some
rough terrain and some dirt roads. A heavy-duty boardwalk cruiser, with cow-horn
handlebars, a wide, cushy seat and coaster brakes, is the vehicle of choice
along the Rockaway boardwalk.
You can apply at the visitors center for a fishing parking permit at the fort.
Many parkgoers get these permits with no intention of actually fishing. You can
show up holding a fishing pole and pay $50. The other day I saw one man with the
type of ocean surfcasting rod needed to hurl the bait and sinker past the shore
break for big striped bass and feisty bluefish. But the next guy showed up with
a puny rod barely big enough for pond perch. He got his permit and left with a
mischievous grin on his face.
One parkgoer, Gary Zero, who has such a permit, was walking with his family
after parking in a fisherman’s parking area. They walked a half mile down a
duneside road of cracking concrete, his wife pushing their beach stuff in a
small shopping cart and he holding his fishing rod.
Parts of Tilden feel desolate, but in good weather there are usually enough
bikers, birders and beachgoers to feel safe. Of course there are plenty of
eccentrics and odd ducks. There are regular reports of a male streaker who
regularly jogs innocuously through the area, said Mike Schubert, a seasonal
intern for the National Park Service. Mr. Schubert lives with seven other young
seasonal employees in a historic house on the fort property that once housed
commanding officers. The whole scene should be a reality television show. He
said he had not really explored the structures, but joked, “If the Russians
attack, I know where to go.”
I was recently in a deteriorated structure, taking snapshots of fresh graffiti
illuminated by streaks of sunlight shining through holes in the roof. A tall,
thin man walked in, dressed completely in black and carrying a bulging backpack.
He was startled to see me, and we stared at each other for an instant like
gunfighters, then began talking. He opened his backpack, which was stuffed with
bottles of imported beer.
He said he took the bus from Queens regularly to photograph the park.
“Where else could you find a park made out of a totally forgotten military
base?” he said. “I’ve found live ammo rounds here.”
He laughed at my attempt to write about the park.
“What could you possibly say about a place like this?”
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