Bannerman's Castle

Ruins of Bannerman's Castle, Pollepel Island, New York, as seen from Amtrak train 253, 10 November 2010.

Earlier today, my friend Maria and I took the train from Albany, New York to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where we'll be attending the fall meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC). The Albany-Penn Station leg of the journey was, as usual, lovely. The train runs right on the western bank of the Hudson River, and passengers are always treated with a wide array of interesting sights, among them: lighthouses, bridges, boats and ships, all manner of waterfowl, the United States Military Academy at West Point, and Ossining Correctional Facility (popularly known as Sing Sing).

Bannerman's Castle, which is located about 80 miles of New York City on Pollepel Island, is one of my favorite sights. Built in the first decade of the 20th century by Francis Bannerman IV, who owned a military surplus business, it housed various types of goods. However, over the course of the 20th century the castle and other buildings on the island fell into disuse. New York State assumed ownership of the island and its structures in 1967, and gave public tours until 1969, when a fire tore through the castle and destroyed its roof and floors.

The island has generally been closed to the public ever since the fire, but thousands of Amtrak Empire Service and Metro-North Hudson Line passengers enjoy a fleeting view of it every day. Despite the concerted efforts of the Bannerman Castle Trust to secure funding needed to stabilize the structure, it's quite possible that the castle will continue to crumble: two exterior walls partially collapsed in late December 2009, and some of the remaining walls look disconcertingly unstable.

At present, however, Bannerman's Castle continues to fascinate children and to encourage busy adults to devote a few minutes to contemplating the fragility and impermanence of all things human.

Happy Birthday, Pete Seeger

The legendary folk musician Pete Seeger turns 90 today. Since 1949, Seeger has lived in a Hudson Valley hamlet about 90 miles south of Albany, and around here his birthday is a very big deal: in addition to writing (or co-writing) folk standards such as "If I Had a Hammer," "Turn, Turn, Turn," and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and making "We Shall Overcome" the anthem of the civil rights movement, he has played a key role in starting sustaining the citizen campaign to clean up the Hudson River.

In the mid-1960s, the Hudson was a mess: riverfront communities dumped raw sewage into the river, industrial plants discharged a witches' brew of toxic chemicals into it, and parts of the river were summertime dead zones. In 1966, Seeger, whose home overlooks the river, and a small group of friends decided to build the Clearwater, a replica of the cargo sloops that once sailed up and down the river, and use it as a floating observatory and classroom. The Clearwater quickly became a focal point for the Hudson River cleanup campaign. To date, hundreds of thousands of people, many of them children, have since sailed on it, examined the river and its flora and fauna, and conducted tests that measured the quality of its water.

Although lingering chemicals and invasive species threaten the Hudson, the river is in much better shape than it was forty years ago: fish are no longer covered by a cottage cheese-like film, sturgeon populations are on the rebound, and people swim in the river without any ill effects. Pete Seeger and his compatriots deserve a fair amount of credit for this vastly improved state of affairs and for their continuing work on the river's behalf.

Later today, Seeger, Bruce Springsteen, Ani DiFranco, and many, many other luminaries will perform at a gala concert honoring Seeger's birthday at Madison Square Garden. Seeger, who still plays (and chops wood!) but shuns the spotlight, generally turns down honors of this sort; the only reason he allowed this concert to go on is that all proceeds from it will benefit the Clearwater.

To the best of my knowledge, Pete Seeger's personal papers are still in his possession (and I hope that he and his wife, Toshi Seeger, are pack-rats!) However, Pete Seeger's life and work are reflected in archival collections held by repositories throughout the country. Repositories that hold substantial amounts of archival material relating to Seeger include:

• Marist College Archives (Hudson River Sloop Clearwater Collection -- 78 linear feet!)
• Wayne State University, Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs (Seeger is heavily represented in the People's Song Library and Folklore Archive collections, and correspondence and other materials are scattered throughout many other collections)
• Library of Congress, American Folklife Center (David Dunaway Collection of Interviews with Pete Seeger and Contemporaries, Alan Lomax Collection, and a treasure trove of sound recordings and secondary sources)
  
• Woody Guthrie Archives (Correspondence)
• University at Albany, SUNY, Archives and Special Collections (Norman Studer Papers)