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As with any old memory, allow for distortion. I saw the police helicopter fly under the lowered BB (slowly) more than once, but the bridge may have been raised most other times. Same time every time.
Seems unlikely cannon would be sent to that neighborhood in the 17th Century, which has me wondering if we’re not continuing a misinterpretation of ‘gun’. Perhaps this deed, subsequent maps, refer to an anglicized noun, verb, adjective, or surname? I worked in the title insurance business for many years, and more than a few knowledgeable real estate attorneys were unsatisfied with the consensus story. In ’76 our OLA 6th grade class took a field trip to an historic house in the Bronx or Westchester. We stopped coming down stairs from second floor, to let another class pass. On my right was a painting of mounted George Washington et al imploring colonial troops to move guns being pulled by horse or oxen up a muddy hill. The lengthy caption described the scene. The guns were definitely stuck in the mud – that was the drama. Rain or snow. Forgive my not having a better memory of what it read, but I’m certain I recognized the perspective as looking W/NW up what is now called Gun Hill Road. Washington was not at the skirmish for which the road is said to be named, no? Nester Danylek was pres of BHS in ’89, when I ran this by him. He didn’t know. Wasn’t really curious as was. Didn’t find the painting by searching online inventory of historic Bronx houses. The stairs were on the left side of the house. Maybe someone reading this will come across it. I’ll shut up now.
The appearance of orange paint on the structure is probably due to my restoration of the slide. My father, John Carroll, took this picture. ’59 I believe.
Our house, on the south end of Kingsbridge Terr, overlooked the canal and most places between Bailey and the Palisades. Saw and heard a lot of cool stuff: big crowds at Baker Field during early ’70’s winning streak; Viet Nam vet NYPD helo pilot flying under the lowered bridge many times before bosses ended that; Dairmuid McGuinness blowing by the Columbia skull team (every time!); Sadly, a jumper on the northeast corner; sadder still- recovery efforts for deceased rowers who overturned and became stuck in mud near north bank near spot near latest derailment. I happened to be walking South on the bridge one Fri night when an Inwood fella I knew came upon me from behind saying God had just talked to him. He was a normal, good guy who played for Good Shepherd, maybe had a pint, but didn’t smoke dope so forget acid, and was completely sober. Walking on air and I couldn’t keep up with him after he told me it really happened! Happy as Larry. I know he spoke at wherever visionaries recognized by the Church speak. My brother said we were/are maternal cousins of Roscommon Coyle sort.
Memory of the matter returned. Our client had a client with dreams of building a dock. It wasn’t the first time someone thought of it.
Talking to people who went to St. Johns, seems they didn’t get the 11:00 am smell from Stella D’Ora. We did up the hill at OLA. Didn’t help concentration.
I climbed but didn’t jump, partly because my oldest brother, who did the hump at 11, got an ear infection there. Partly because I was/am a terrible swimmer. Jumped the reservoir pump houses many times.
I grew up on KBT, with first year at OLA ’69. I saw this video some time ago. A couple of things: the boat handler is talking as if he just happened upon the kids, seeming amazed that there are still tough guys like back in the day, when he was a tough guy doing C Rock. But the camera filming him is the one filming throughout! There’s a kid, that looks like Horowitz in ‘Bad Boys’, that bares a resemblance to yer man. Also, this was filmed in what – 2012? Nobody was.hanging on C Rock after around.1980. Guy got killed a few years earlier. Cops were there every time. This is a vanity video for them to show to their friends and clients after referencing Basketball Diaries. ‘Yeah, that’s what it was like on Johnson Avenue back when. We were bad. But we only smoked a little pot.’.
Meant to write that the pictured markers would have been set at the corner of property as measured from the nearest official monument (obelisque). How the corner was determined would have been determined by reading deed descriptions and maps. NYS real property law follows English Common Law, which made made things simpler.
There’s an interesting story to these and other monuments in Kingsbridge area, and if I could remember you would all be impressed. Sorry. I heard it while studying title insurance at NYU. I can tell you these monuments are survey monuments that were measured using the true north baring, with chains as the tool for determining length. There is a geostationary monument, in Battery Park maybe, which Army Corp. Surveyors used as a reference point to set down the short obelisque markers one sees on side of state roads, especially. The markers along Broadway, between the Battery and Albany are the oldest in the U.S. (that may be much of the story I can’t recall). How old you ask? Pretty damned old. The markers pictured herein would have been used as starting points when lands were further subdivided. Subsequent surveyors placed rods, and later brass pins, at beginning corners, which later surveyors use as starting points. Incidentally, There are two other main geostationary monuments in the U.S. – in Colorado and S.F.
I was a title examiner in the Bx, beginning in ’83. The record room, then on 161st St, flooded in the early ’70’s and many maps and libers could not be saved, making searches against properties in some areas problematic. During the depression,.the WPA had put people to work creating a block and lot indexing system with maps of what was conveyed by deeds recorded against lots in the block – tracing paper pages were added when lot lines changed. Together with Title Guarantee’s plant, and back and forth to the indexes and libers, everything could be insured. I vaguely recall I was put on the property you mention. Some brain cells are telling me it had to do with the land under water, but I don’t know. Land under navigable water was/is conveyed by the Federal gov, or the owner of the recorded Letters Patent Uncle uses to convey. However, since early last century it is uncommon to obtain Letters Patent in areas like the one in.question (there is also a $1 redemption clause the gov inserts in LP). The foot bridges over RR tracks, that one sees along the Hudson River are there to keep the LP valid. No access means abandonment, which would extinguish. I don’t think I ever found the Letters you searched for, which could have been granted any time after the Revolution.
