Bannerman's Castle, New York - United States

The National Maritime Historical Society, tucked under the Crystal Bay restaurant at Peekskill's Charles Point, is a haven for Hudson River aficionados. There, the Bannerman Castle Trust, an organization dedicated to stabilizing the ruins of Bannerman Castle and opening the island to the public, hosted a slide show and lecture one cold winter night late last December. After the graduation ceremony for an advanced sailing class, Neil Caplan, the Trust's founder and President spoke. A short man with long nights showing under his eyes began, "Four years ago I came to this area looking for a place to do theater. When I saw Bannerman Castle, I fell in love!" The Trust's persistence has swung Albany's attention to the rapidly deteriorating castle, and they have won the small but monumental right to study the possibility of opening Bannerman Island to the public. Neil went on, "We've brought architects and engineers to the island, and they say that five out of the seven buildings can be stabilized."

When the Trust takes officials out to the island, it is often in Thom Johnson's aluminum rowboat, with him at the oars. Thom is the Trust's vice president, a tall sturdy man with a gray ponytail and renaissance ability for photography, painting, educating and R&B drumming. Out of his many trips to the island, beginning when he was taken by a friend as a teen, he has created a stunning slide show of Bannerman Castle, complete with fascinating, righteously opinionated narration. He begins, "I like to think of Bannerman Castle as a giant billboard. Although local residents wouldn't let Frank Bannerman change the name of the island, on the north and east sides of his warehouse, it says BANNERMAN'S ISLAND ARSENAL, obvious to all who pass by on train and boat."
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