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Making America's Best Idea Even Better
Gateway National Recreation AreaAnnual Mating of Horseshoe Crabs in Jamaica Bay
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Gateway National Recreation Area
Battery Potter
Battery Potter's 12 inch gun firing.

Gateway NRA/NPS Museum Collection

Battery Potter's 12 inch gun firing.

Fort Hancock's Battery Potter (1893-1906) was the first disappearing gun battery in the U. S. It was the first and only one powered by steam. 

Through the work of volunteer-in-park Mike Mason, you can view the inner workings of the battery posted on YouTube.

Battery Potter gun lift

Battery Potter

Battery Potter 2

 
Battery Potter

Gateway NRA/NPS Museum Collection

View of Battery Potter looking southeast. One gun is raised in the firing position.

Visit Battery Potter

Battery Potter is open for tours April through October. Check the program guide for dates and times.

Meet a Ranger or volunteer to go inside this man made cave like structure. See where soldiers once manned the guns. Feel the damp conditions created by twenty foot thick walls of concrete. Learn what advances in machinery and building techniques made possible in the 1890s.

 
Want to know more about Battery Potter? Click here to read the Historic Structures Report on Battery Potter, Mortar Battery and Battery Gunnison.
Jacob Riis  

Did You Know?
Journalist Jacob Riis was called "New York's most useful citizen," by Theodore Roosevelt. As police commissioner, Roosevelt often accompanied Riis in raids exposing the hardship of life for New York City's poor and immigrant populations.

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Last Updated: November 16, 2009 at 09:53 EST