When the Trust takes officials out to the island, it is often in Thom Johnson's aluminum rowboat, with him at the oars. 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 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. 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. After the graduation ceremony for an advanced sailing class, Neil Caplan, the Trust's founder and President spoke. 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. The National Maritime Historical Society, tucked under the Crystal Bay restaurant at Peekskill's Charles Point, is a haven for Hudson River aficionados. I began to look for a safer way to learn more about this abandoned castle. My nerve rushed away like a Hudson River tide. Make sure you put in north of the island when the current is flowing south." I once watched canoes paddle for hours trying to get to the island. And it's infested with snakes and deer ticks. That evening, I called a friend who is an amateur local historian. We left planning to go rent a canoe and come back the next day. On our right, the beautiful, broken down facade of Bannerman Castle beams like the winner of a childhood game of hide and seek. Just north of Cold Spring, my friend and I climbed the pedestrian overpass at Metro North's Breakneck Ridge train stop. I have driven on 9D between Cold Spring and Beacon no less than fifty times, and never noticed a castle on an island in the Hudson. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the island being owned by the People of the State of New York, and it is one group's vision that the public will soon regain access to this legendary site. Public access to this island has had a small window of opportunity, curtained by Native American and Dutch settler's fear of resident spirits and goblins, and then restricted since 1900 for more contemporary safety reasons. This is the remnant of a Scotsman's fortress called Bannerman Castle - built not as a home, but as an arsenal for his immense collection of weapons. Buried on an island in the Hudson, beneath the brittle body of century old castle walls and thin hair of tangled vines, lie Civil War bayonet scabbards and the ashes of Irish linen bed sheets.
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