During the Revolutionary War Major John André of the British Army was captured, disguised in civilian clothing, at this site by three Patriot militiamen. They found papers on him that implicated him in espionage with Benedict Arnold, a high-ranking officer of the Continental Army. After a military trial André was executed; Arnold defected to the British and lived his remaining years after the war in England.

A memorial was erected on the site in 1853, on land donated by some members of the local African American community. It was one of the earliest monuments to honor any event of the Revolutionary War. Later it was expanded and incorporated into Brookside Park, a late 19th-century Beaux-Arts residential development by the firm of Carrère and Hastings. Still later it became the campus of two different girls’ boarding schools, one of which was attended by Lauren Bacall. It became a park and took its current name in the middle of the 20th century, and all buildings but the gatehouse were demolished.

Note the statue commemorating Andre’s capture in the top left corner of the first picture.

It has a special meaning for me. For a long time in the 1990s and early 2000s I pretty much lost interest in photography. Then I left my camera in a taxi in Geneva, Switzerland in 2010 (I eventually got it back thanks to the effort of one of my sons-in-law), but before I did, I bought a new camera: a Panasonic Lumix LX-3 and somehow it reignited my interest.

I had a serious illness in 2020 and wasn’t able to get around much. After I recovered this was the first place I went to take some pictures.

Taken with a Sony A7IV and Nikon Nikkor Micro 55mm f3.5