Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride

November 21, 2011

Mob Week officially kicks off on Wednesday but this is part of it too. The New York Minute is just one of the contributions to the Flash Cast podcast. JRD Skinner, Jessica May, and Opoponax started the podcast (and of course the Flash Pulp audios) and graciously opened it up to a diverse group of contributors, myself included. Many of the contributors will be spotlighted here this week as well as a few folks from outside the Flash-Verse. So to give Mob Week a soft opening, here is the last of my regular features you will see for a while.

Hell Gate. Execution rocks. This is New York. And this is your New York Minute.

When you think of New York, especially this time of year, I’m sure many of you think of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, skating at Rockefeller Center, and of course the famous Christmas tree. You know, all the Bright Lights Big City stuff.

Not me. I think you know that by now.

New York is full of cool history if you know where to look. And your atlas is a great place to start.

You do own an atlas, right?

Execution rocks is not a part of New York City. It is located in the center of Long Island Sound at the entrance to New York Harbor and is much closer to New Rochelle than NYC. It also boasts a very cool lighthouse that dates back to 1850 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. I love lighthouses.

Let’s stop for a second and recap. 1850. Lighthouse. Execution Rocks. Want to bet it’s haunted? C’mon, how many episodes of Scooby Doo am I describing?

The legend goes that during Colonial times the British, wishing to avoid public executions that would inflame the revolutionary spirit, would carry out secret executions there. They would chain the condemned to the rocks at low tide and the rising water would eventually drown them. Some stories say that the skeletons were left chained to the rocks as a warning for future trouble makers.

According to lighthousefriends.com, The ghosts of the condemned had their revenge. A shipload of British soldiers, sent to pursue Washington on his retreat from Manhattan to White Plains, foundered at the reef. No redcoats survived.

The legend of the executions had such hold, that when light keepers were assigned to Execution Rocks, they were under a unique contract. No light keeper was to ever feel chained to the reef. Instead of stating a set length of duty, their contract read that their length of service was for as long as they were willing. If for any reason, they requested a transfer, it was instantly granted.

Of course, other sources say that the name Execution Rocks comes from a more mundane reason, that the name for this outcrop was chosen to reflect the historically dangerous shipping area created by the rocks’ exposure during low tides.

Guess which story I prefer.

Hell Gate is a narrow part of the East River near Queens and it is spanned by the Hell Gate Bridge. How cool is that? Wouldn’t you love to say you cross the Hell Gate Bridge to work every day? And what about the end of the day? “Yep, I’m crossing Hell Gate and going back to the wife.” Marriage is fun that way.

Anyway, Hell Gate comes from the Dutch word Hellegat, which could mean either “hell’s hole” or “bright gate/passage.” It is actually a fairly common name for hazzardous waterways in this part of the world.

By the late 19th century, hundreds of ships including HMS Hussar had sunk in the strait. In 1851 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began to clear obstacles from the strait with explosives; the process would last seventy years. On September 24, 1876, the Corps used 50,000 pounds of explosives to blast the dangerous rocks, which was followed by further blasting work. On October 10, 1885, the Corps carried out the largest explosion in this process, annihilating Flood Rock with 300,000 lbs. of explosives. The explosion sent a geyser of water 250 feet in the air; the blast was felt as far away as Princeton, New Jersey. The explosion has been described as “the largest planned explosion before testing began for the atomic bomb.”

The rocks at Hell Gate are also said to be the site of British executions, but if you believe the old legends, every place was. History is written by the victors.

This has been your New York Minute.

An audio version of this legend first appeared just last week in the amazing FlashPulp website. Check them out for awesomeness and goodies!

Tags: bmj2k, bridges, Execution Rocks, Flash Pulp, Hell Gate, history, lighthouses, Long Island, Mr. Blog, Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride, Mr. BTR, New York, New York Minute, Revolutionary War, urban legends