Cultural Landscape Report for the Sandy Hook Coastal Defense Batteries, Gateway NRA

Layton, Timothy; Foulds, H Eliot

Fort Hancock, the historic Sandy Hook Proving Ground, and the accompanying coastal defense batteries are located near the northern tip of the Sandy Hook peninsula at the mouth of New York City’s outer harbor. Fort Hancock was established in 1895 as part of a new nationwide system of coastal fortifications proposed in the 1880s by the Endicott Board. Acquired by the National Park Service in 1975 for use as part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, the Sandy Hook Unit is comprised of the greater part of a narrow 2,000-acre peninsula extending north from coastal New Jersey. This cultural landscape report documents a dozen military fortifications made up of discontinuous sites and unified by other surviving base infrastructure including roads, railroad rights-of-way, and utility corridors. This report provides a historical overview of the development of the coastal defense system sufficient to provide a sound basis for choosing appropriate preservation treatments. This overview is followed by an inventory and assessment of existing landscape conditions. This in turn is followed by an analysis and evaluation of the historical significance of the military landscape and the relative contribution of its surviving elements in conveying that significance. This analysis provides base inventory data and cultural resource evaluations for use in managing these landscape resources. This report concludes with landscape treatment recommendations. This report has defined working boundaries for each of Sandy Hook’s coastal battery sites and recommends that effective management of vegetation within each boundary is critical to both short and long term preservation of the historic resources. A mix of woody and herbaceous vegetation were historically encouraged to grow on battery engineered landforms to prevent soil erosion and to conceal the batteries from view. Soil erosion continues to be an issue affecting the preservation of these resources, and the park should avoid the removal of large areas of vegetation from battery slopes without a robust corresponding plan for immediately revegetating cleared areas with plantings known for their ability to protect against soil erosion. However, the presence of large trees growing on battery slopes presents a threat to the preservation of Sandy Hook’s coastal batteries because large trees have the potential to uproot during storm events and displace large volumes of soil that make up the historic engineered landforms. Woody vegetation of any size should also not be permitted to become established in cracks and voids in the historic concrete structures, or otherwise allowed to take root in accumulated organic matter on concrete battery surfaces. Historically inappropriate growths of tall vegetation should not be permitted to block historic downrange views that were critical to the historic operation of the ordnance as well as to a contemporary understanding of the operation of the historic defenses. Providing park managers with a useful rule-of-thumb, this report presents vegetation management recommendations that might be conveniently remembered as “4-by-4-by-Fore.” The first of the two “4’s” representing the elimination of all trees greater than four-inches in diameter measured at breast height growing upon engineered landforms. The second of the two “4’s” representing elimination of woody vegetation of any size growing within four-feet of buildings and structures or masonry battery features. The third “Fore” representing the effective management of vegetation forward of battery sites in perpetuation of historic downrange views and enhancing public interpretation and understanding of these sites.

Cultural Landscape Report for the Sandy Hook Coastal Defense Batteries, Gateway NRA

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