Fort Tilden is a former United States Army coastal defense installation on the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, New York City, established in 1917. It was named for Samuel J. Tilden, governor of New York and the defeated presidential candidate of 1876. Its heaviest armament was Battery Harris, a pair of 16-inch guns enclosed in concrete during World War 2 and scrapped along with the fort’s other guns in 1948; anti-aircraft batteries and then Nike Ajax and nuclear-capable Nike Hercules missiles were deployed at the site through the Cold War until 1972. The Army transferred the reservation to the National Park Service in the late 1970s, and the graffiti-covered batteries and magazines now stand among dunes and maritime forest within Gateway National Recreation Area.
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I am a web application developer, photojournalist, urban explorer, and history enthusiast passionate about the open web and documenting my experiences on this planet. This project was founded in the early 2010s and has evolved into a sort of personal Wikipedia of places that interest me (and often the photographs I’ve taken there). I’m originally from Toronto, Canada, but spend most of my time residing in Taiwan.