Recharging an Old Battery

They are New York's oldest remaining structures, witnesses to a time that predates the American Revolution by up to an entire century. It was a time when the city stretched as far north as Wall Street. Life in the Colonial territories was dangerous, and fortification was a necessity. Fast-forward roughly 300 years into the future of one of the densest cities in the world. Colonial-era walls are discovered in Battery Park. What can we learn from these piles of stone, and what are we doing to ensure that such discoveries are properly preserved?

Recently, three colonial walls were un-earthed in Battery Park during construction to replace the 100-year-old South Ferry Station. The walls, dated from the early 1700s or late 1600s, have been found on separate occasions over the last four months. The largest measures 105 feet long and is nine feet thick. Experts have not reached a consensus regarding the purpose of the walls or if they are related, but most agree they were built to defend the city against foreign militaries, the ocean or both.

The Times reported that MTA Capital Construction Company, which supervises expansion projects, believes the wall will not interfere with the original expected completion at the end of 2007. Expenses from cataloging, removal and preservation of the walls will be included in the $400 million project.

"You have to think of it (the cost of preservation) in terms of the whole project. The preservation will end up to be a very small percentage," said the appropriately named Diana Wall, a professor at City College, and co-author of Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City. Regardless of the cost, Wall said it was better to be over precautious.

Over the last few decades, New York City has been home to several important archaeological discoveries, with more expected as the city continues to push for for development. In 1991, over 400 remains from the 17th and 18th century were discovered during pre-construction work in Central Park. "The impact of the African Burial Grounds is it brought home to New York that there was slavery, it opened up people's eyes," said Wall. "The walls are different, it shows the way the city really was."

Amanda Sutphin, director of archaeology for the city's Landmarks Preservation Commis-sion, said the walls are important because they may help us understand present-day security.

"Finding such large sections of New York City's earliest fortifications-the battery of Battery Park-can help us to better understand the measures that were needed in the Colonial era to safeguard the city, which seem particularly meaningful post-9/11,"

Once such an important archaeological site is discovered, how can we know that proper steps are being implemented in its preservation?

"Urbanization is the last century has destroyed thousands of years of the city's history," said Anne-Marie Cantwell, a professor of anthropology at Rutgers University, and a co-author with wall on Unearthing Gotham. "We need stronger legislature to protect the sties and greater public support and awareness of just how rich the city's past is."

That's where Section 106 of the National Preservation Act comes into play. But preservation experts complain that the Act is riddled with ambiguity that is only compounded when multiple governmental groups are involved in a project. "The guidelines, in effect, say that whenever there is federal involvement in a project, money or even a permit, the impact of that project on important cultural resources must be determined," Wall said. "If there are such resources that might be harmed by the construction, the impact must be 'mitigated.'"

This can mean anything from canceling the project to removing the site to full-scale excavation (think of the stereotypical view of archaeology) or, what was chosen for the Battery Park walls, monitoring-having archaeologists study the site after a discovery has been made, and determine the best course of action. Discovering more colonial walls is unlikely, at least for this project. A final trial trench was dug where the project will conclude; no walls were discovered.

Robert Koehl, professor of archaeology at Hunter College, was involved in a subway project in Athens in preparation for the Olympics, which included archaeologists during the entire project. Government commissions "were sensitive to the problems with digging a subway. Archaeologists were with them the entire time, that's why it took so long. Sure it took a couple of years longer, but everyone benefited."

Large-scale civilization in Athens does predate New York by thousands of years. Koehl said any time they "scratch the surface" in areas like Athens, ancient remains are being found. Adding to the difficulty of archaeology in New York is its dense nature. Some similarities between the New York and Athens subways projects do exist. The New York Times reported that the MTA plans to enclose a 20-foot portion of the colonial wall in the new subway station's mezzanine. Such displays in Athens have been well received. The Athens subway "was successful in that it preserved antiquities and turned the subway into a living museum while transforming Athens economically," Koehl said.

In a city rebuilding and expanding, it is only a matter of time before more archaeological treasures are found. Wall points to other Afri-can and Irish communities located where Cen-tral Park is today, or other forts, like the Dutch New Amsterdam Fort. "This will continue to be a golden era for New York City archaeology as long as there are regulations in place that require that we look for them," Wall said.