October 14, 2008
Visiting Bannerman's Island
What's more intriguing than an abandoned island with a rotting castle sitting just north of New York City? Bannerman's Island sits in the Hudson, just about 50 miles north of here, and American Heritage explains "this island fortress was once the private arsenal of the world’s largest arms dealer," Frank "Francis" Bannerman.
Living in Brooklyn at the time of the Civil War, he purchased "government surplus equipment at the nearby Brooklyn Navy Yard" for the family business, and eventually Francis Bannerman Sons became the world's largest dealer in military goods, with the weapons exceeding the family's store space in Manhattan (occupying an entire block at 501 Broadway) and three huge Brooklyn warehouses. This is where the island comes in!
He bought the island [6.5 acres] in December of 1900 for fifteen hundred dollars from a private owner and bought seven acres more of underwater land in front of the island from the state of New York. He ringed the submerged area with sunken canalboats, barges, and railroad floats to form a breakwater.And they lived happily ever after on a "virtual powder keg" (with just a few fatal live ammo accidents)! By the 1960s the castle was decaying, and in 1967 it was sold to New York’s Taconic State Park Commission, with all remaining arms and munitions disposed of. Soon after a fire broke out and ruined the decaying structures even more. These days the Hudson River website warns: "Do not attempt to visit...it is a very treacherous combination of buried hazards and dangerous wall conditions." Tod Seelie recently braved the island, however, and came out of it safe and sound, and with these images. (See more photos here and here.)On the island Bannerman built a huge arsenal styled after his idea of a Scottish castle. On a hill in the middle of the island he built a smaller castle as the Bannerman family home.
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Shaun O'Boyle has some cool photos as well. oboylephoto.com
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how do you get there? kayak?
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I think you need a permit to get there.
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dragonwyck anyone?
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Pretty sure you just need a raft and sense of adventure to get there, as id the case with most things 'off limits.' Maybe not always the raft.
http://sympathetic-compass.blogspot.com/
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This is cool!
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There are tours this month, both on kayaks and by ferry to the island.
http://www.bannermancastle.org/news.html#Cold%20Spring
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"Do not attempt to visit...it is a very treacherous combination of buried hazards and dangerous wall conditions."
Umm there are kayak tours from Cold Spring and boats that leave from Beacon and Newburgh Ferry Terms that land on the island and give tours to adults and children. It's not "dangerous". Just sayin'. I love Shaun O'Boyles pics of this.
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Ok, a revision then: Do not attempt to visit... without paying for it.
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Wonderful post.
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And please, keep those beautiful images out of the reach of Danny Meyer or the Hudson River Park Conservancy.
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That's a fantastic set of photos, very cool.
I've been up there, and what the warning is trying to do is prevent people from taking their own boats to the island unsupervised.
The problem at Bannerman's, but this holds true for large sections of the Hudson, is there are all kinds of hazards just below the surface of the water that can easily sink your boat. Specifically at Bannerman's there are chopped pylons. Most of these hazards don't appear on the charts, so it's actually solid advice.
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Fascinating. Excellent work. Thanks.
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cool beans
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Bannerman Castle rules. These are amazing photos. Thank you!
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Nice place to be especially this time of the year.
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This place is neat. I've taken the MTA's Hudson line many times and it goes right by.
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I've passed that thing 50 times and never knew what it was. Cool stuff.
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been taking the train up for years and woundering abut that place. now I know, now I want to go. thanks
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Were any movies filmed there, or using it at least for some of the shots? I could have sworn I've seen a movie in the last year that used the place as a major part of a movie...
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New York State is the greatest place in the world.
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Despite the hipster-explorer outfits, those pictures are fairly cool.
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I've loved this place to years, it's incredible.
and ditto on the outfits!
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Strictly speaking, it's Bannerman's Castle on Pollepel Island.
www.forgotten-ny.com