NYC - Governors Island: Castile Williams | Castle Williams, located on the northwest point of Governors Island, was designed and erected between 1807 and 1811 under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel (later Colonel) Jonathan Williams, Chief Engineer of the Corps of Engineers and first Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point. The nearly circular fort, measuring 210 feet in diameter with 40-foot high and 7 to 8 feet thick red sandstone walls, established a prototype for American coastal fortification design for the rest of the 19th century with its multiple levels of enclosed or fortified gun enplacements (casemates)...During the Civil War, the casemates of Castle Williams alternatively housed newly recruited Union troops, served as a barracks for the garrison's troops, and imprisoned Confederate enlisted men and deserters from the Union Army. Following the war, it became a low-security military prison until the Coast Guard arrived in 1966 and converted it into a community center.
