Historic Structure Documentation for Battery Ayers, Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island, New York, Documentation for the Historic American Engineering Record
The Cultural Resource Group, Louis Berger & Associates, Inc.. 1990. Historic Structure Documentation for Battery Ayers, Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island, New York, Documentation for the Historic American Engineering Record. Naval Facilities Engineering Command Northern Division. Philadelphia, Pennsulvania
The subject of this documentation is a seacoast gun battery located at Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island, New York. Fort Wadsworth is a former U.S. Army installation now under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Navy. Fort Wadsworth is situated on the southeast side of Staten Island, at the south end of Bay Avenue. The western anchorage and Interstate-287 approach of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge are located on the installation, creating a visual, although not physical, boundary between the northern and southern areas of the post. Also scattered throughout this area are more former seacoast defensive works, abandoned since at least World War II and now heavily wooded. Battery Ayers is the westernmost structure in a line of four batteries extending in a northeast-to-southwest line from the intersection of New York and Richmond Avenues. It faces southeast, toward New York Bay. Battery Ayers is one of 12 batteries constructed at Fort Wadsworth between 1895 and 1904, during what is known as the Endicott program of United States coastal defense. It was constructed in 1900-1902 by the New York District Office of the U.S. Army Engineers, under Maj. W.L. Marshall, C. E., and upon completion was turned over to the Coast Artillery Corps on 14 December 1902. It was named for Col. Roman B. Ayers, 2nd U.S. Artillery, Major General, U.S. Volunteers, who died 4 December 1988.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- The Cultural Resource Group, Louis Berger & Associates, Inc.
- Date of Issue
- 1990-01
- Publisher
- Naval Facilities Engineering Command Northern Division
- Units
- GATE , NER
- Keywords
- Batteries, Endicott Program, Engineering, Fort Wadsworth (NY), Harbor Defense, History, Military, New York, Reconstruction, Seacoast, Staten Island (NY)