Brooklyn is known for many things – its famous wooden roller coaster in Coney Island, its cheesecake from Flatbush Avenue, and its one-time-World Series-winning baseball team, to name a few. However, what many may not know is that it is also home to the country’s fourth oldest military installation and the city’s last active military installation for the past 26 years.
The Fort Hamilton Army Base (Bay Ridge) is a combined community that’s made up of active-duty Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard and Reserve Components members. It was named after Alexander Hamilton, one of the country’s founding fathers and the first Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, during the 1900s. The army base was built to protect the New York Harbor’s Brooklyn side – with construction completed in 1831. It successfully protected the harbor during the Revolutionary War and later functioned as an embarkation center for troops during World War I and World War II. In modern times, National Guard troops stationed at Fort Hamilton provided critical operational support in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Fort Hamilton also became a Base Support Installation that hosted FEMA and other relief organizations, post-Hurricane Sandy.
We’ve curated a list of some other unbeknownst facts that will surely make you want to learn more about the base – or even visit its Harbor Defense Museum.
- It’s home to the NYC Recruiting Battalion, the Military Entrance Processing Station, the North Atlantic Division Headquarters of the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers, the 1179th Deployment Support Brigade, the 77th Regional Readiness Command and the New York Army National Guard Task Force Empire Shield.
- The post was designated a historical landmark in the National Registry in 1971 – with surviving portions of the original fort entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
- Famous military tenants: Captain Robert E. Lee (engineer in charge of all the fortifications defending New York’s harbor, 1841-1846), Brevet Major Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson (artillery officer, 1848-1849) and Captain Abner Doubleday (post commander in 1861).
- During the War of 1812, the base held a British fleet at bay, saving the city from attack.
- In 1839, it became the first National Guard training camp.
- The U.S. Army Chaplain and Chaplain Assistant School had been there from 1962 to 1974.
- An MTA bus used to come through the base and make a stop, pre-9/11, according to the Harbor Defense Museum Director/Curator Justin Batt.
- On June 11, it’ll be celebrating the 195th anniversary of when its cornerstone was placed.
Top photo courtesy of the Harbor Defense Museum. “The City Guard, Captain Mansfield Lovell practicing gunnery at Fort Hamilton, Wednesday, July 18, 1860.”
Author
George Fiala has worked in radio, newspapers and direct marketing his whole life, except for when he was a vendor at Shea Stadium, pizza and cheesesteak maker in Lancaster, PA, and an occasional comic book dealer. He studied English and drinking in college, international relations at the New School, and in his spare time plays drums and fixes pinball machines.
