Greater Astoria Historial Society 35-20 Broadway, 4th Floor | L.I.C., NY 11106 718.278.0700 | www.astorialic.org Gallery Hours: Mondays & Wednesdays 2-5 PM Saturdays 12-5 PM Exhibits ~ Lectures ~ Documentaries ~ Books Walking Tours ~ Historical Research Unique & Creative Content For more information visit us on the web at www.astorialic.org This image adapted from an invitation to the Long Island City Athletics 33rd Annual Masque Ball, 1909. 32 AUGUST 2015 i LIC COURIER i www.queenscourier.com ■LEGENDS This large, impressive castle captured the imagination of generations of travelers and journalists particularly, who were fond of ascribing a mysterious and hoary antiquity to the place. Stories were told that it was built in 1815 and the architect was supposed to be a mysterious Frenchman who fled the collapse of Napoleon’s Empire. The Bodine name has its origin in France where it is spelled Bodin and is quite common. John A. Bodine was born in Columbia Co., N.Y. in 1818, came to the city and made his fortune as a wholesale grocer in the export trade with Cuba. The New York City Directory of 1857 shows Bodine Co. Grocers with John Bodine and (son) Mordaunt Bodine at 77 Dey Street in Manhattan. The 1870 directory reflects Bodine & Co. Grocers at 196 Chambers Street, with John Bodine as vice president and Mordaunt Bodine associated with the business. John Bodine was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Long Island City Savings Bank at its founding in 1876. The mansion was built in the spring of 1853 by John H. Williams as one of three large “castellated or tower houses.” Thomas Andrews of Oyster Bay, who came to Ravenswood in 1853, was the architect and builder. Bodine Street (today 43rd Road) connected the castle to the older pre-city street grid, and ultimately to Jackson Avenue. Its address was 43-16 Vernon Avenue. The main section is built of rough blocks of a kind of granite quarried nearby (perhaps on Roosevelt Island or Burden’s Quarry in modern Queens Plaza) and the roof was covered with sheet copper. At one corner a turreted brick tower raised high above the surrounding roofs and trees, and commanded a fine view of the city. The castle was on an embankment about 200 feet from the river. The grounds extended to Vernon Avenue. There was a high stone fence on the Vernon Avenue side with heavy iron gates, guarded on each side by a sentry box built of stone. There were also two stone buildings in front of the grounds that were at one time used as stables. The front doors of the castle were of oak and very heavy. In an obscure corner of one of the rooms on the first floor of the right wing, an old iron safe was for years hidden behind the oak wainscoting. In one of the upper rooms near the tower, a false door was hidden by a secret panel. A tunnel, walled up and arched with brick, led from the cellar out to within 25 feet of the river. The presence of a tunnel leading from the castle to near the water particularly intrigued local residents and editors who invented stories of secret romances and hidden crimes and even slave smuggling to explain it. The truth was more prosaic: it enabled servants to bring refreshments to a summer house on the lawn without being seen by guests strolling on the park-like lawns. Near the end of the tunnel was once a summer house. A stone stairway led from the ground underneath the summer house to the river below. Next: A missile destroys the chandelier. LEGENDS OF LIC BY GREATER ASTORIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY LEGENDS OF LIC
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