Star Fort Point- Examining the Masterful Interior Masonry of 1861 San Francisco

[00:00:02]So, coming back to Fort Point, having a great day looking around at all of the sites. We're going to come in here and get a chance to look at the extreme craftsmanship of the fortress and we're going to try to look inside and find some information about the sistns.

[00:00:26]So, it should be a great day, you know, have a chance to go inside and use the high-owered lights and examine all the case mates and the locations where the metal was attached.

[00:00:47]So, there are blocked up entrances here and we see the services are coming in all throughout.

[00:01:04]Going back into the fortress. See the uh granite floors here. Here's our first look at potentially one of the sistns.

[00:01:15]Yeah, definitely a sistern.

[00:01:17]There's water into one of the sisterns.

[00:01:27]It's holding 30,000 gallons.

[00:01:51]A lot of interesting uh shapes in the wall.

[00:02:26]So, getting a much better look and able to take a little more time. We're going to see that we've got uh granite sills.

[00:02:35]This granite has some sort of a cut purpose.

[00:02:39]granite header with large hinges that appear to be possibly bronze, not steel, but also this walkway above us has uh arched features.

[00:02:58]And of course, the painted material could be steel, probably is with the rust.

[00:03:11]And I think the flight is like we're nerding the extreme granite.

[00:03:21]And this is one of the entrances to the to the spiral staircase.

[00:03:29]We'll go in there in a minute.

[00:03:43]So circular.

[00:03:47]>> It's all circular. And then you're noticing the machine the machine cut surfaces.

[00:03:54]You can see that it's very distinct.

[00:03:57]Very easy to see.

[00:04:08]the precision circle and all of the cuts are worked in. I'm noticing a great detail on this uh this one step up here.

[00:04:19]It's the underside where there's this relief here.

[00:04:28]This nice round relief in the underside of the granite itself.

[00:04:44]So look at the precision of the circular interior and then coming to the interlocking slab landing.

[00:04:59]Imagine that that cannon a cannon like that is being fired in here and imagine how deaf you'd be.

[00:05:06]>> Yeah.

[00:05:07]>> And this these are all can and they're all but there's a bunch of interesting details. This is what I was talking about. So this uh so this these are granite and they go in an arch. You can see the arcing arcing all throughout all floors.

[00:05:23]And there's core drill bit holes. These are drilled into the granite to hold the bronze >> connected. They take >> all that out.

[00:05:33]>> There's nothing left here, but it's all all floors had it. And then they had these interesting little casemates. Most of them are closed up. The opposite side would be those big metal doors. But look at that huge granite piece. Some another arcing piece.

[00:05:50]So this cannon, why isn't it put on a display which shows the pivoting work?

[00:06:01]two team.

[00:06:21]It's >> a tight shot.

[00:06:25]Yeah, >> we're going to be looking at these floors on every level and how they've decided to embed the rails for mounting the cannons.

[00:06:39]Core drill holes through the granite to secure it. Surrounded by a different type of flooring, possibly a slate that may have different properties to the granite itself.

[00:07:05]We're here with Curtis and Jim and Sue having a great day.

[00:07:17]Don't normally have this good of light.

[00:07:31]the perfect >> perfect granite.

[00:07:39]>> So they have these large >> tracks.

[00:07:46]This is all metal. This was all like a It was like a bronze curb.

[00:07:52]embedded in granite, isolated by some other kind of shale or slate.

[00:08:13]That's perfect.

[00:09:04]So, we're noticing this inside arch for the entrance to one of these casemates along this precision granite wall.

[00:09:15]But notice that the keystone is square on with the inside of the parade area, but it has a angle that it comes in. So those granite squares are intersecting with the brick layout of the underside of the vated ceiling. And on this one too, just considerably larger.

[00:09:45]So we have a lot of these archways that are coming in at very unusual angles.

[00:09:53]So this is a octagonal column of brick first level I'm sorry granite first level then separated by a layer and then another layer of bricks all the way to the top. But we have these angled licated arches to get more pinched at the top. So, that's something to take note of. But this precision wall of granite, this on all levels and this inside little edge So, trying to get a good look at one of the central octagonal towers and looking at the arched structure on top. As they go away from the center, left and right, they increase in their complexity. The bottom made of granite with a arched ceiling.

[00:11:03]The second floor, you can see it's falling away and becoming a different shape of ceiling. And the top one even more so, and the inside does the same.

[00:11:15]The left side is a mirror image, and it has sort of a helical effect coming out of the central tower, which we'll find as the granite stack teardrop staircase.

[00:11:29]could potentially have um Tesla coil properties.

[00:11:41]No way to be certain at this point, but there is one and two said to be the location of the Now, I take that back. It's Alcatraz. This one here had a lighthouse, but a Fresno light.

[00:11:57]And this one over here, whatever was on top has been replaced by a terrible wooden hut.

[00:12:16]>> Security.

[00:12:20]>> So, it's a self-supporting center weighted staircase.

[00:12:25]So circular interior, octagonal exterior.

[00:12:36]So we have some specialty pieces that form a circular interior with an arched opening to intersect with the complicated angles of the vated ceiling.

[00:12:49]But you can see on the paint where it is worn, there's evident machine saw marks around the entire inside.

[00:13:10]Wow.

[00:13:12]We're off limits.

[00:13:22]Wooden floor.

[00:13:26]Strange room.

[00:13:28]Hidden room.

[00:13:30]>> That's a hidden room.

[00:13:32]>> Do not >> danger. Do not pass the tress in there.

[00:13:42]So just illustrating the complexity of these interior barrel bolted ceilings where they come into an intersection.

[00:13:50]This one is starting with the arched shape morphing into a barrel vault in multiple directions. and spiraling.

[00:14:10]So, this is an area I've never been. So, quite exciting. And I'm seeing, of course, the remnants of where the metal was thoroughly connected.

[00:14:23]Got some kind of a screen over here. So, we're going to get a look out one of these windows.

[00:14:30]So, we're up above parking lot.

[00:14:41]So all the metal I'm going to repeat this has been removed over and over again. But you can see the rust or the discoloration stain where they would have had the cast bronze elements forming these arcs embedded in two different surface colors. As you can see the very dark black perfectly shaped and machined paper stones with the inlaid metal.

[00:15:06]So this would be said to be a pivot point.

[00:15:23]You can see the inside angle and how complicated returns to the staircase and some entry doors and the casemates.

[00:15:35]All the while we see all the metal has been removed and we see how complicated this really is.

[00:16:06]So, this is an area I've never been able to go into because it's too dark. But, we've got we've got some solutions today.

[00:16:28]There was something here.

[00:16:30]Something very interesting was here.

[00:16:34]So this is some sort of a water purpose with piping but certainly added it's directly over what would have been an intersection of art components coming into this point rotating around through here and around. So this is one of the outer components of the bastion.

[00:17:01]see what we're facing.

[00:17:12]Very interesting.

[00:17:14]Something in here all covered up.

[00:17:18]Covered up and poorly bricked up for some purpose.

[00:17:29]Seems broken.

[00:17:35]But this is the precision masterful brick. So these ones here are outside cut corners.

[00:17:47]This appears to run through. So they are using some sort of a machine tool saw looks like with a round blade throughout throughout So on the second level overlooking the parade ground area, but we see that these are huge sections. It looks like poured concrete much later than the original build. So what this must have looked like when it was originally constructed, we do not know.

[00:18:45]be interesting to see more information.

[00:18:47]But again, the octagonal towers So, this is the outside of Marshall Beach. It looks like since I was here last, they've had some equipment in here on top of that wall. So, we were here at a low tide. You can see the water is already here. So, construction of the wall would no longer be possible just in one short part of the day.

[00:20:04]So, we're under the bridge on the second level looking at the rusty bridge.

[00:20:14]So, certainly added windows. I wonder if this moves.

[00:20:19]>> Not anymore.

[00:20:51]There was The saw marks are evident the surface saw marks on the face of the riser. So this interior c interior round with precision cutting to complete the circle and then into this room.

[00:21:22]Now we're on the third interior floor above that ground.

[00:21:38]Heat. Heat.

[00:22:13]This is coming to a very interesting intersection with a central pillar, multiple pillars.

[00:22:30]And look at the detail of this strange interlock on the brick. They zigzag the interior barrel vault.

[00:22:43]The specialty area.

[00:22:48]A lot of minerals leeching through this one section.

[00:22:52]Real real serious.

[00:22:59]And then we have this other room with another added utility possibly added later as toilets. Yes. Yes, they are.

[00:23:21]So they added this to the building later and I'm sure that the use of the toilets contaminates the sistns. There is something that looks different built into the original floor.

[00:23:38]That's really strange.

[00:23:43]Let's see what we have going on out here.

[00:23:50]So, we're under What are they doing? Oh, I guess someone saw my video.

[00:23:57]So, since we've been here, they now have scaffolding in place and vehicles have been in and they're going to address and likely paint this area that I showed to you that has rusted beyond any type of excuse. Very interesting.

[00:24:36]So, this is the area that I showed and it's where it was rusty.

[00:24:41]You can see how terrible this is. But they have put up their work platforms from just a month or so ago and someone's going to restore this bridge.

[00:24:59]So we're at one of the spokes northeast facing.

[00:25:07]So, something was on top of this space and been removed, installed after the arked metal. Looks like it was brick of some sort.

[00:25:20]It's got a floor drain that's been capped. The other side had toilets. So, here we are getting a look out and we can see Alcatraz in the bay.

[00:26:01]We're in one of the other spiral staircases.

[00:26:12]all the way to the top and open and cap with a wood structure.

[00:26:30]Look up the other way up.

[00:26:40]Very windy. Extremely windy.

[00:27:06]So each one of these has the machine cut precision components. Each one of these fitted pins was drilled into a deep core bit and then set in place that would have held the bronze ring with a complete circle inside and outside. Could feel it if there was a cannon on here. You could rotate it around the interior of the fortress, which of course you'd never do.

[00:27:40]Heat.

[00:27:51]Heat.