Fort Totten (Queens)
| Fort Totten | |
|---|---|
| Part of Coast Defenses of Eastern New York | |
| New York City borough of Queens, New York | |
 Fort Totten
Fort Totten
Fort Totten
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| Coordinates | 40°47′31.3″N 73°46′33.9″W / 40.792028°N 73.776083°W |
| Site information | |
| Owner | New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (primarily) |
| Open to the public |
Civil War fort, some other activities |
| Site history | |
| Built | 1862 |
| Built by | United States Army Corps of Engineers |
| In use | 1862-1974 (US Army); 1974-present (Army Reserve) |
| Materials | granite |
| Fate | Active use by U.S. Army Reserve. Portions converted for use as public park. Other portions converted for use by the NYPD and FDNY. |
Coordinates: 40°47′31.3″N 73°46′33.9″W / 40.792028°N 73.776083°W
Fort Totten is a former active United States Army installation in the New York City borough of Queens. It is located on the north shore of Long Island on the Willets Point peninsula (not the neighborhood currently called Willets Point). Fort Totten is at the head of Little Neck Bay, which is also the place where the East River widens to become Long Island Sound. While the U.S. Army Reserve continues to maintain a presence at the fort, the property is now owned by the City of New York.
Construction began on the Fort at Willets Point in 1862 (named Fort Totten in 1898), after the land was purchased by the U.S. Government in 1857 from the Willets family. The fort is close to the Queens neighborhoods of Bay Terrace, Bayside, Beechhurst and Whitestone. The original purpose was to defend the East River approach to New York Harbor, combined with the preceding Fort Schuyler, which faces it from Throggs Neck in the Bronx on the opposite side of the river entrance. The fort was among several forts of the third system of seacoast defense in the United States begun in the first year of the Civil War. The initial design was drawn up by Robert E. Lee in 1857. Unusually, it was designed with four tiers of cannon facing the water totaling 68 guns. In the United States, only Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island and Fort Point in San Francisco shared this feature. However, construction was abandoned after the war, as masonry forts were considered obsolete following severe damage to some in the American Civil War. Only one tier and part of a second tier of the two seacoast walls was completed; the three landward walls received little work. From 1861 to 1898 the fort area was known as Camp Morgan, named for New York Governor Edwin D. Morgan.
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