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House passes bill to seek change of status for Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument A 149-foot-high shrine to American Revolutionary War POWs that stands majestically over Fort Greene Park could be on its way to becoming a national monument to be maintained by the U.S. Department of the Interior if a bill approved by the House on April 28 is passed by the senate and signed into law by President Obama. Members of the Society of Old Brooklynites present a wreath at the base of the monument. Photo by Eugena Ossi The House passed the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument Preservation Act,...

Google two days ago broke its official silence to put speculation to rest on its barge program. It is a weasel worded statement so general it is useless and it even says things may change. Here’s the money quote from Google in an article published by Tech Crunch "Google Barge … A floating data center? A wild party boat? A barge housing the last remaining dinosaur? Sadly, none of the above. Although it’s still early days and things may change, using the barge as an interactive space where people can learn about new technology we’re exploring."... ...At the heart of...

Yesterday evening, despite heavy rain during the day and still threatening skies, 200 or so people gathered in Fort Greene Park to attend the rededication of the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, which honors the approximately 11,500 Revolutionary War combatants captured by the British who died aboard old warships anchored in Wallabout Bay (adjacent to the present Brooklyn Navy Yard site) and used to house prisoners of war. Conditions aboard these ships were so horrendous that almost one third of those imprisoned did not survive. The monument, a Doric column designed by the eminent architect Stanford White, was dedicated exactly 100...

Death, disease and injury were the fate of thousands held at sea More Americans died in British prison ships in New York Harbor than in all the battles of the Revolutionary War. There were at least 16 of these floating prisons anchored in Wallabout Bay on the East River for most of the war, and they were sinkholes of filth, vermin, infectious disease and despair. The ships were uniformly wretched, but the most notorious was the Jersey. Following the Battle of Long Island in August, 1776, and the fall of New York City soon after, the British found thousands of...

BROOKLYN — Fort Greene Park is both a popular neighborhood park and a historically significant site. The 30-acre park is home to tennis courts and playgrounds, a visitors’ center and a monument to Revolutionary War heroes, and is host to events such as concerts, poetry readings, and civic gatherings. The park, which is bounded by Myrtle Avenue, DeKalb Avenue, Washington Park and St. Edwards Street, has been named May’s Park of the Month. “History comes alive at Fort Greene Park,” said Commissioner Adrian Benepe. “What was once a Revolutionary War fortress, known as Fort Putnam, is now a majestic park...

LONDON (Reuters) - The government is to consider using prison ships as a way of tackling the growing crisis of overcrowding in jails, according to media reports on Saturday. Home Secretary John Reid has advertised for contractors to provide ships that could house up to 800 prisoners in England and Wales as the prison population neared its capacity of around 80,000 inmates. "What he's (Reid) determined to do is to ensure we've got sufficient prison places, and obviously, he's looking at a number of ways of doing that and a prison ship is one possibility," Home Office minister Vernon Coaker...

NEW YORKERS are a famously restless, impatient sort of people, focused more on where they're going than where they've been. That's a real pity where the American Revolution is concerned, because the city played a key role in the resistance to King George III that led up to the Declaration of Independence. It's also the place where thousands of men died during the Revolutionary War that followed — not in combat, but in British prisons. From 1775 to 1783, some 200,000 colonials took up arms against the crown. While the statistics are rough, it has been estimated that more than...

US faces prison ship allegations The United Nations says it has learned of serious allegations that the US is secretly detaining terrorism suspects, notably on American military ships. The special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak said the accusations were rumours at this stage, but urged the US to co-operate in an investigation. He said the UN wants lists of the places of detention and those held. The comments come five days after the UN accused the US of stalling on their requests to visit Guantanamo Bay. Investigators have been asking to visit the jail in Cuba to carry out checks...

The UN has learned of "very, very serious" allegations that the United States is secretly detaining terrorism suspects in various locations around the world, notably aboard prison ships, the UN's special rapporteur on terrorism said. While the accusations were rumours, rapporteur Manfred Nowak said the situation was sufficiently serious to merit an official inquiry. "There are very, very serious accusations that the United States is maintaining secret camps, notably on ships," the Austrian UN official told AFP, adding that the vessels were believed to be in the Indian Ocean region. "They are only rumours, but they appear sufficiently well-based to...