Shadmoor
Autumn has always held a melancholic mystique for me; the vibrant decay bursting through the canopies, the alluring scent of earthy spice, and the chill of the brisk morning air stirs something primal deep within my soul. It makes my feet grow weary, my finger itchy for the camera shutter, and my ears insatiable for wistful melodies. I suppose it comes as no surprise that I find the exploration of abandoned places and historic sites equally tantalizing and complementary to these emotions; thus in the fall of 2014, I began gallivanting with my closest friends, seeking to locate and capture otherwise forgotten history on both sides of the Long Island Sound.
It seems fitting that Montauk was the first wonderland to beckon my attention, with a plethora of rich history and folklore cloaking the fishing village between the saline waters. While recent years would dub it a hotspot for summer parties and a frat-boy atmosphere, the off-season bore more resemblance to its past. Subsequently, Shadmoor State Park marked the perfect location for a morning jaunt. After loading my faithful four-legged companion Delilah into the car — a protective and sharp-as-a-tack Australian Kelpie we all called Dee — we picked up the rest of my family: John, a brother from another mother, and that “other mother,” Carol, who often treated me as one of her own. John’s cousin Lewis, a husky young man with a friendly disposition, would also venture out with us on this particular day, rounding out the group and filling up the vehicle.
This ensemble was typical on my days off; John and I were usually concocting some recipe for entertainment once the saturated tourist towns evacuated, and when Carol had car trouble I’d give her rides to house cleaning gigs where we’d sip tea and conjure up our plans. Sometimes we’d drop by our friend Whitey’s to see if we could rope him into an adventure, which was often easier than trying to reach him by phone. Cramming into the car and wandering around was always a welcome change to the doldrums of the colder months. Whitey was older than John and I, and I had a tendency to look up to him; rough around the edges, but an eccentric artist in many ways, I enjoyed our conversations about music, photography, and his travels around the world as a young surfer in the ’80s and ‘90s.
Delilah’s role as partner-in-crime had just recently been bestowed; her previous owner was a dear friend of mine — another one of John’s cousins — but as circumstances changed he could no longer look after her. Initially promising to find her a new owner, I rescinded the offer and filled the position myself. It had taken only two days for me to fall in love with her, and only two weeks of training to get her to quit nipping people and barking incessantly. As a matter of fact, she turned out to be quite a saint, obedient and intelligent, and exceptionally intuitive. We communicated seamlessly through subtle body language, with her heeling to which ever side my eyes darted to. I could gently nod and raise my brows to get her to sit, and it wasn’t long before making a single stirring motion with my index finger would prompt her to twirl and dance in circles for me. Other than the days I couldn’t bring her to work, the two of us were inseparable; she rode everywhere with me, attended parties where she was often a guest of honor, and when I was confident in her safety, she even explored abandoned places with comparable intrigue.
On this bright November daybreak, my energy was amplified by an alternative playlist of the Decemberists, the War on Drugs, and Mumford and Sons. As we reached the Napeague Stretch — a long, straight two-lane highway that cuts through a narrow neck of dunes to connect Montauk to the rest of the island — I cranked up the War on Drugs’ nearly nine-minute melodic masterpiece “Under the Pressure,” which would indefinitely become my soundtrack to the open road. The song’s peak is highlighted by a switch in drumming in the middle of it’s instrumental center, something Whitey would later identify as a “paradiddle,” commending its ability to give me goosebumps from the mere introduction of additional notes.
“Well the comedown here was easy, like the arrival of a new day, but a dream like this gets wasted, without you.” The lyrics resonated; I had been coming down off of a turbulent summer for the past few months — not to mention a few parties I used as coping mechanisms — but that morning things just seemed to click. I was patching the holes in my heart with new adventures with people I loved, and finding a new perspective on the things that could not be changed. Slapping my hands against the steering wheel and bobbing my head all across the Easternmost miles of New York — “The End,” as it was dubbed — I spotted the Shadmoor sign just past West Lake Drive — the road which led to our favorite dive bar: Liars’ Saloon.
As we pulled into the unpaved lot, we noticed the faded kiosk and various signage noting the 99 acre park’s often under-appreciated significance: being a part of Camp Wikoff, where Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders were quarantined after the Spanish-American War. The site was later upgraded to become a part of the United State’s network of coastal defense installments during WWII, working in conjunction with facilities at what are now considered Navy Beach, Camp Hero State Park, and Montauk County Park.
Established in 1898, Camp Wikoff once contained almost 30,000 troops who had served in Cuba and Puerto Rico, as well as roughly 15,000 horses. While it was only utilized for three months, the site was visited by President McKinley and his Secretary of War: Russel A. Alger, to boost morale and provide emotional support to those suffering poor conditions during their battle with Yellow Fever. It is rumored that during this period, Teddy Roosevelt frequently rode his horse to the shore for a dip in the afternoon, and that his own kin drowned off the coast near Amsterdam Beach during such a swim.
Following his command of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, Teddy sought the office of New York State Governor, before McKinley asked him to serve as his next Vice President. After winning reelection, McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo, leaving Roosevelt to serve the bulk of his second term. Proving to be popular in the American eye, he won his own reelection and became an iconic politician as a progressive Republican at the turn of the century, far exceeding his reputation as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, and temporary resident of Montauk’s “Wild, Wild, East.”
Meandering through the sandy trails, we came across the most intact building on the grounds: a three-story fire-control station. The false wood siding gave the appearance of a normal house from both air and sea, and was designed to fool the prying eye. Inside, however, were the bare essentials for operation. Iron bars were built into the center of the rear wall, leading from the musty basement to the third floor; though rusted and sketchy in some places, they still provided adequate access to the multiple tiers of graffiti and wind-breaking shelter, each level more satisfying than the last.
The higher we climbed, the better the scenery; eventually the rebar rewarded us with an unobstructed view of the Atlantic, just as vigilant soldiers viewed it on duty in the decades prior. We could have spent ages in the place, but there was more to see, and we were feeling particularly restless. One week later, fresh cinder blocks would be cemented into the basement access, and our remaining visits would be confined to the outdoors. Shadmoor would continue to be a favorite destination, however, offering natural beauty from the bluffs that loom above the beaches of America’s wildest fishing village. I have yet to find a view so harmonious to my soul as the scarps beside Ditch Plains.
Heading North toward Navy Beach and Hither Woods State Park, we paused to take a gander at the installations at Edward Vincent Ecker, Sr. County Park, a cove in Fort Pond Bay at Navy Beach, where seaplane hangars and docks played a vital role in the naval presence in the region. Hidden behind lumber yards, sanitation hubs, and railroad crossings, the concrete slab roads are still intact, including turn-arounds and narrow off-shoots to underground bunkers. Unlike Shadmoor and Camp Hero, this park lacks the pamphlets and signage to note its significance. I set my camera on a tripod and asked my friends to pull the trigger, capturing a portrait of Delilah and I in the entrance to one of the buildings.
Interrupted by the buzzing of dirt-bikes, we decided to keep moving. From the buildings, its a short walk up the bluff to the overlook, where we could see the famous Montauk Manor and the site of the original Montauk Village, before the Great New England Hurricane of 1938 encouraged its storefront to be rebuilt on the Southern shore. Fishing nets dotted the shoreline, while the sounds of shotgun blasts echoed across the water — a testament to the sporting spirit of rural Long Island. Dee did her best to blend in with the shrubs as she looked out over the bay with us. With the day dragging on we decided to move farther West, toward the Stretch once more.
Just beyond the wayside of Montauk Highway, toward the cranberry bogs and marshes, stands the Mackay Radio Tower. Beginning operations in 1927, Mackay is one of two 300 ft. international communication towers constructed on the site, before both were toppled during the same hurricane which had rearranged Montauk’s storefronts. After its restoration, the tower was crucial to the response of emergency distress calls from the Atlantic to its South, and remained staffed until its decommission in 1984. The site still assists New York State Police in their operations, while the original building beside it remains vacant and in disrepair.
On later visits, I would clamber through the Western side of the building to peek inside and take a gander at the graffiti on the walls. Occupied by dozens of swallows, it seemed the birds had more use for the structure than my fellow humans, but I continued onward to the next room, where a painted silhouette on a door startled me. Its long arms were perhaps paying homage to alien or modified lifeforms from Plum Island Animal Disease Center, both of which were said to have been discovered in the area. The room also housed electrical equipment — from what I surmised were generators — as well as appliances and storage. I noticed an abandoned metal cooler, and wondered if its contents had been consumed here. Feeling exposed by the limited access, I never spent more than 15 minutes on-site, despite knowing folks who had camped out in their cars along the sandy driveway for several nights when they had nowhere else to go.
Further along Napeague Meadow Road toward Amagansett, dressed in tread marks and veiled by some of the pretties skies at sundown, lies the scattered vestiges of the fish factories that operated here between 1883 and 1969. Once called “Promised Land,” an ironic jab at the stench of the area, it was a hub for processing menhaden to manufacture fish meal, glue, lamp oil, and fertilizer. The Smith Meal factory alone processed up to 30 million fish per year, and still draws the brows of old-timers in neighboring communities who had to endure the smell.
Today, the warehouse has been repurposed into a hatchery, and serves a crucial role in restocking the waters of the East End in the hopes of maintaining a sustainable ecosystem and fishing industry. They currently cultivate over 15 species, including striped bass, which to this day is my personal favorite catch for a fish fry with some hand-cut “chips” from Yukon Gold potatoes. The surrounding land was sold to The Nature Conservancy, who has since worked with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to create a network of trails and visitor resources.
Our early visits to the site lacked the luxury of trail maps and blazes, and we got turned around on several occasions. Nevertheless we explored the sprawling expanse of chainlink fences, piles of bricks, and concrete slabs which extended interminably. We found old Coke cans, plastic Army soldiers, and boundless rubble left as a testament to the desolate site’s important epochs. Leading from the old warehouse and disappearing shortly beneath the road, a set of overgrown railroad tracks vanished into the adjacent dunes.
Delilah was looking hungry and exhausted, and possessing two more legs than the rest of us, she was a good indication of how the rest of us felt. The sun was hanging ever lower, casting just enough eerie light to showcase the beauty of an industrial era reclaimed by the habitat it once suppressed. November is full of the stigmas of life and death, and today was no different: iron was forged to conquer this land, just as nature was designed to conquer it. As for us; we were just lucky to be along for the ride. Placing a penny on the tracks, we joked that the next train to come and flatten it would grant us a wish; I think a part of me is still waiting.
