CORRESPONDENCE

Recycled Torpedo Plants

You, your readers, and Robert Friedman, who wrote “Digging Up the U.S.” (August/September 1983 issue), may be interested in learning that Alexandria’s World War I torpedo plant buildings are alive and well. The buildings, which contain an element of history since they form one of only two plants of this kind, have not been torn down as stated in your article. After extensive redevelopment, the two buildings are being used to house an art center and a parking garage. Your author apparently was standing on the site to the north of the two still-remaining World War I buildings looking up “slaunchways” at the Carlyle House—the site where five colonial governors met to decide to fight the French and Indian War, and the house that also served as British Maj. Gen. Edward Braddock’s headquarters prior to his disastrous march toward Fort Duquesne, which is now Pittsburgh. This site where your author was standing was that of a World War II addition made to the plant. It was demolished.

William M. Glasgow, Jr.
Alexandria, Va.

Riverside Discoveries

Robert Friedman’s excellent article “Digging Up the U.S.” was both informative and enjoyable. However, in it he states that it is doubtful that anything found at the 175 Water Street site in lower Manhattan would lead historians to dramatic new insights into urban life. Actually, since that article was prepared, analyses have revealed some unknown facts about New York’s development and its residents’ lives.

This city block, claimed from the East River by building massive log wharves and incorporating a derelict eighteenth-century ship as cribbing to structure the landfill, offers an outstanding example of eighteenth-century engineering techniques. Here they resembled those found at medieval European harbor sites where landmakers also had vast wood supplies and discarded ships at their disposal. In addition, the ship, which crosscut five individually owned water lots, graphically illustrated the interaction and cooperation occurring between members of New York’s eighteenth-century merchant elite (at 175 Water Street one of these elite, by the way, was a woman).

New finds refute records that document piped-in water as early as 1806 and a citywide sewage system by 1860. Dated artifacts from cisterns and privies on this commmercial seaport block indicated that water collection and waste disposal were undertaken by individuals rather than by the city until late in the nineteenth century. Archaeology at 175 Water Street again demonstrates that we can literally dig up our past.

Joan H. Geismar
Principal Investigator
175 Water Street Site
New York, N.Y.

Premature

You state in the August/September 1983 “Time Machine” column that Cyrus Field “radioed” his success from Newfoundland on August 5, 1858. If he had a radio available, why was he spending his time laying a submarine telegraphy cable?

Mark A. Carr, Jr.
San Clemente, Calif.

Tarawa

The story of Tarawa revisited by G. D. Lillibridge (October/November 1983) was beautifully written and touched me deeply. I know only one person who was killed during the war. There were others from our small town, of course, but they were just names without faces. My contemporaries and I spent the World War II years in the classroom.

Charlie had worked for my father until he joined the Marines in 1942. On the same autumn day that my father learned of Charlie’s death—killed by our own guns on Saipan—he received a letter from him dated a few weeks earlier. It was brief, as were all his letters, saying only to save his job for him. He’d be back as soon as the war ended because “if I managed to live through Tarawa I know I can survive anything.”

Jean Strobel
San Jose, Calif.

Thank You

As one who began reading AMERICAN HERITAGE in 1947 and who served on the advisory board from 1949 to 1977, I have read a goodly number of issues with considerable care. There has never been one with so much good writing as October/November 1983. Though I am not much of a fan for military writing, Cawthon’s piece is masterly. And any day one runs into Marshall Davidson in person or in print is a holiday.

Louis C. Jones
Cooperstown, N.Y.

Correction

Mr. Yagoda in his very interesting “Lullaby of Tin Pan Alley” (October/ November 1983) tells us Al Jolson was snatched from a “Lower East Side Synagogue” to become a song plugger. Asa Yoelson came to this country from Russia at age four and settled with his family in Washington, D.C. Asa was snatched from a lower southwest Washington, D.C., synagogue to begin his journey to fame. Just like the Irish and Italians, not all Jewish immigrants getting off boats settled in New York City.

Donald F. Beach
Falls Church, Va.