DISTANCE FROM NEW YORK: 50 miles
WE must look like floating Popsicles to the boats that steer clear of us. We’re sitting below the waterline in the Hudson River, paddling toward medieval-looking ruins on an island north of West Point – it’s a place about which I’ve always been curious.
The hulking remains are clearly visible from shore, but it isn’t until our approach that a weatherworn sign can be read: Bannerman Island Arsenal.
Frank Bannerman was New York City’s first Army-Navy surplus dealer, expanding in the 1880s from Civil War uniforms to munitions.
In 1904, when his Brooklyn neighbors got antsy about the cannonballs and bullets in their backyard, he moved his family and weapons to what was then called Polepell Island.
There, he built a castle and matching arsenal decorated with crenellated turrets and arches in honor of his native Scotland.
Then, one hot August day in 1920, just as Bannerman’s old neighbors had feared, the powder house blew up,
throwing shells all over the six-acre island and into the Hudson. Luckily, no one was there that day.
Now part of New York’s Hudson Highlands State Park, Bannerman Island can be visited via kayak tours only – legally, anyway – thanks to the perilously corroding breakwaters surrounding the island.
It’s a pleasant one-mile paddle, fine for beginners, that crosses the Hudson from Plum Point Park below Newburgh. When we reach the island, we trade paddles for hardhats.
Thom Johnson, the trust’s official historian, takes us around. We learn that Bannerman built everything from surplus materials bought at auction, had everything barged up the river, then sunk the empty barges to create a security perimeter. Things blew up before he could construct his medieval moat.
We’re told to look carefully at the arsenal’s turrets which, from a distance, appear to be the same height. Standing in front of them, we see it was an optical illusion. In fact, they were built with four rows of bricks on the right turret, eight on the left.
We then walk along deteriorated stone paths past the remains of Mrs. Bannerman’s garden, toward the
castle. There, we find biblical and ancient Scottish proverbs carved over the doorposts and niches, and poke our heads into large, empty rooms.
Our last stop is the second-floor patio, outside what had been the master bedroom. The view is breathtaking: We can see past Storm King Mountain, West Point and the George Washington Bridge, to the
faint Manhattan skyline.
Get going: Hudson Valley Pack and Paddle (hvpackandpaddle.com) and Hudson Valley Outfitters (hudsonvalleyoutfitters.com) have half-day Saturday trips through mid-September; each costs $100 (reservations required).