Fort Totten ( Queens ) Fort Totten is a former United States Army installation in the New York City borough of Queens . It is located on the north shore of Long Island , on a peninsula named Willets Point . Fort Totten is at the head of Little Neck Bay , which is also the place where the East River widens to become Long Island Sound . While the U . S . Army Reserve continues to maintain a presence at the fort , the property is now owned by the City of New York . History . Construction began on Fort Totten in 1862 after the land was purchased by the U . S . Government in 1857 from the Willets family . The fort is close to the Queens neighborhoods of Bay Terrace , Bayside , Beechhurst and Whitestone . The original purpose was to protect the East River approach to New York Harbor , along with Fort Schuyler , which faces it from Throggs Neck in the Bronx on the opposite side of the river entrance . The fort was named in 1898 after Joseph Gilbert Totten . In 1954 , the fort became a Project Nike air defense site . Although no missiles were located at Fort Totten , it was the regional headquarters for the New York area ; administrative offices and personnel housing was located at the fort . Fort Totten was also the headquarters for the 66th Anti - Aircraft Missile Battalion , Battery D , whose missiles were located at nearby Fort Slocum on Hart Island . Headquarters of the 41st AAA Gun Battalion was also stationed here . 90MM cannon Batteries of the 41st were located throughout Long Island . During the mid - 1950s the 90 MM guns were replaced with Nike missiles . This use of Fort Totten was discontinued in 1974 . Much of the fort has become a public park and is open for tours by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation . It is accessible by the Cross Island Parkway and Brooklyn - Queens Greenway . The Fort Totten Visitor ' s Center has been refurbished and houses a museum with exhibits about the history of Fort Totten . Parts are used by the New York Police Department and the New York Fire Department as a training center . During the winter months , a large variety of migratory waterfowl can be observed in the surrounding waters : Little Bay to the west , Long Island Sound to the north , and Little Neck Bay to the east . Most buildings are dilapidated and unused . Fort Totten is also a sports complex , with an outdoor pool , baseball fields and three soccer fields used for youth soccer . The Fort Totten Officers ' Club , known as " the Castle , " is home to the Bayside Historical Society , which hosts events , historic exhibitions and cultural programs . It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 . The Officer ' s Club can be clearly seen in the closing scene of an April 2009 episode of the TV series Fringe , filmed at the Fort , in which the FBI delivers to an undisclosed location a child found to have been sealed for years in a building vault . The Fort is a New York City Historic District and the Club a Designated Landmark . The club building was apparently designed by Robert E . Lee in his pre - Civil War capacity as a military engineer , although some historians believe that the actual design was done by a subordinate and merely approved by Lee . The building was designed in the neo - Gothic style popular at the time and was not created specifically for Fort Totten but rather was a generic design approved by the Army for use at military installations . Identical structures were built at other Army forts and the Castle design was adopted by the U . S . Army Corps of Engineers as their insignia , although the reason for this action is murky . A local tradition is that the Corps of Engineers symbol derived from the Fort Totten building , but the reverse is more likely : the building design was based on a Castle in part because this symbol had long been identified with Army engineers . When Fort Totten ' s Castle was restored in the 1990s , the Corps of Engineers was contacted in the hope that they would participate , particularly since the Fort Totten Castle was occupied at one time by the Corps of Engineers , but the military failed to show any interest .