New Video Goes Inside NYC’s Unfinished Civil War-Era Fort

What do you do with an incomplete, 19th-century, military fortress? That question has surrounded the remnants of Fort Totten for decades. In a new video short by Untapped New York’s Artist-in-Residence Aaron Asis, the filmmaker prompts viewers to contemplate the role that forgotten landmarks like this play in urban life. The video also gives an up-close look at the fort’s abandoned Water Battery.

Captain Robert E. Lee prepared the original plans for the fort and construction started in 1862. Sitting across the East River from Fort Schuyler, this waterfront fortress was supposed to defend the eastern approach to New York Harbor, according to the New York Parks Department. However, before the structure was finished, engineers deemed it obsolete. The Water Battery was meant to be a four-story structure, but it never got that high. Instead, the stone stronghold has remained truncated and roofless for over a century.

The fort served as a facility for casualty support and hospital care until the end of the Civil War. Once the conflict ended, the U.S. Department of Defense found various uses for the building and surrounding land. The D.O.D. gifted the site to New York City and Parks in 1987. Today the fort is part of Fort Totten Park, and there are plans to incorporate the site into a 16-mile waterfront greenway that will connect to Gantry Plaza State Park in Long Island City. You can tour the Water Battery during Open House New York Weekend.

In the new video by Asis, viewers fly through the empty, tunnels of the Water Battery and take in aerial views above the Willets Peninsula that look out into the East River and Little Neck Bay, with glimpses of the Throgs Neck Bridge. The video highlights the challenge of “maintaining a balance between solitude and activation,” an issue many landmark sites contend with. This video is part of a series called Unforgotten Minute. Over the summer and fall, Unforgotten Films is partnering with the New York Landmark Conservancy to highlight these shorts that spotlight overlooked New York sites and their histories. The Conservancy will post these videos on social media, giving followers a closer look at locations such as the abandoned smallpox hospital on Roosevelt Island, Green-Wood Cemetery, and the Washington Square Arch. We’ll be following along, so stay tuned!

Next, look inside the forgotten tunnels of Fort Totten!