The Buildings of Sandy Hook’s Fort Hancock – A Sad State.

Just a short drive from my house is one of my favorite places. It’s Sandy Hook National Park part of the Gateway National Recreation area. I go here regularly maybe to take a drive, see some wildlife, go fishing or get my exercise in. When I go here I always have a camera just because there’s always a new way of seeing the park and always an opportunity to make a few photos.

The park though has two sides in my opinion – the pretty and the ugly.

When you enter you see the hills of the Highlands NJ with the Twin Lights Lighthouse in the distance and the Shrewsbury River. Looking to your right you see the Atlantic Ocean, miles of sandy beaches and New York City in the distance to the north.

As you head further into the park, near the end to be exact, you run into Fort Hancock. For those of you who don’t know. Fort Hancock is a former United States Army fort that housed artillery that defended the Atlantic coast and the entrance to New York Harbor from enemy ships. There’s heavily reinforced concretes bunkers and other buildings that served as housing for the troops that housed the base. It must have been an amazing sight to see back then.

I said I would have loved to have seen the base “Back Then” above because when you see the condition of Fort Hancock today you’ll see it in terrible shape. Most of the base, bunkers and buildings are for lack of a better work condemned and in terrible disrepair and it’s a terrible shame. The parks service had an opportunity to preserve a historic part of our military history and they failed on so many levels for so long.

It certainly didn’t help that Sandy Hook was hit hard by Super Storm Sandy either. Most of the building called “Officers Row” that line Sandy Hook bay and known for their porches were heavily damaged and most of those porches are gone or being held up with temporary bracing now.  The photo below shows the view you would have seen if they were still standing.

So one day we had a rare nice winter day of almost 50 degrees I took this as an opportunity to shoot some of the building and the terrible condition they are in. I look at the photos as both art in that it makes for some really interesting images but it also hurts to shoot sometimes. I just think the parks service should put some of the money they get from beach traffic back into the park to at least try and maintain what they have. Certainly the problem is grand and would require a huge some of money to restore everything but at least try…. something…..anything.

So anyway here’s some photos from a couple different outings that really show a side of the park that truly needs some help.  It’s only a fraction of what’s going on in the old Fort.