Fort Hamilton Army Museum is under siege

The New York Harbor Defense Museum on Fort Hamilton is located in the Caponier, one of the original structures of the old fort. It’s a splendid facility featuring quite an array of exhibits and collections of shoulder arms and cannons dated from the American Revolution, World Wars I and II, Korea and Vietnam. It’s the only Army museum in the city and this remarkably preserved building is on the National Register of Historic Places. There is no admission charge and it is open Tuesday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The phone number is 718-630-4349.

Unfortunately,  according to a recent article in  the Stars and Stripes daily military newspaper and other news sources, the Fort Hamilton Museum is on a list of museums the U.S. Army Center of Military History wants to close. F. Lee Reynolds, a spokesman for the center, confirmed the CMH recently announced plans to close or consolidate 29 Army museums. The criteria they plan to use to determine which museum would get the ax were public access, number of  visitors, maintenance and relevance. 

This would be a tragic loss for all the veterans, soldiers, civic  groups, summer camps, other community organizations and thousands  of schoolchildren that come on school trips to  the museum. We all have to fight to save this vital, informative outlet now and for future generations.

Last week, I started the campaign to try to save the museum by attending the July meeting of the Merchants of Third Avenue to bring it to their attention. I am also calling on veterans groups, community boards, education councils, precinct councils, school and church groups as well as elected officials to help save this  valuable resource.

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This corner welcomes the news about the possible restoration of ferry service from the old 69th Street ferry pier to the St. George ferry terminal in Staten Island. Right now if you live in Bay Ridge or the surrounding area you have to take the R train to the South Ferry station in Manhattan to get aboard a ferry to Staten Island. A quick scenic ride from Bay Ridge to Staten Island  would be a much better way to go. 

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It never gets old for me to see the 70-foot lift and dance of the Giglio statute and boat. So I made another trek to the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel parish in Williamsburg for this  grand celebration. It was the 138th anniversary of this sensational event where 100 men known as lifters raise and dance the Giglio, with a brass band and Msgr. Jamie Gigantiello on the platform. 

It was also a time to see some old friends like this year’s capo Danny Vecchiano, who is usually leading the band up on the platform. Vecchiano, a former music teacher at Bay Ridge’s Fort Hamilton H.S., is now the principal of the Brooklyn School of the Performing Arts. We also saw Paul Korn, another former FHHS music teacher and now the assistant principal of performing arts at Wagner College on Staten Island, and Brain Miesegaes, another teacher still at  FHHS,  and of course Monsignor Jamie Gigantiello, a former associate pastor at Bay Ridge’s St. Patrick’s Church.