Fort Tilden
A twenty minute walk from Jacob Riis Park lies the former naval base and current National Park, Fort Tilden. The missiles and naval artillery were traded in for athletic fields, hiking trails for the adventurous, and a center for arts. Despite the old military weaponry being done away with, the historic buildings of the naval base remain to this very day.
The former locomotive warehouse (pictured above) is now burnt to a crisp.
On such historic building is the former locomotive storage garage, servicing the expansive railway that ran all through out the base. The tracks that the locomotives used to run are all either buried underneath the sands of time or scrapped for metal by the US Government. Through out this all the warehouse stood still, eventually being used to display an art piece in 2018. Simply titled "Narcissus Garden", the warehouse had been filled with 1,500 steel globes. The idea had stemmed from Yayoi Kusama, a prevalent Japanese artist who dwells in the subject of contemporary art. This may not be anything to new to those who live within the area, in the same year there was another guerilla art piece and four years earlier an art installation had been held in the now decrepit warehouse.
A stone's throw away is the site of what was once the Nike Missile Site, an anti-air missile site used to protect Rockaway and the Greater New York Area from the potential threat of the Red Menace. Now it’s the site of the sanitation department, where large trash bins are scattered behind closed gates. It is not like the closed gates are much of an obstacle when graffiti is spread liberally throughout the ruins of the former Nike site. Rusty metal hatches and piles of red bricks make up the wasteland that is the bunkers. Subterranean shelters for those who lived in Fort Tilden during the bygone era that was the Cold War are now all filled with mounds of sand and boulders in an attempt to persuade adventure seekers away.
Walking through an overgrown lot of weeds and mulberry trees we would eventually find the home of the Nike Ajax missile center. Off the beaten path there were only a few things to indicate its existence, a rusted ventilation shaft, and a heavy-duty escape hatch. The sound of water dripping lead you to believe that you stumbled upon a sewer maintenance access point. However going down the rusted ladder, reveals a massive open room with graffiti adorning the walls. The rainwater had dripped in overtime transforming it into one big pond with the water level. Despite this setback, I had waded through the knee deep water to see the relics of a long-defunct era.
