Some Advise Needed On A Recovery

[Papa-Bear-NYC]

Today I was benchmark hunting on the upper west side of Manhattan, NYC. I located a station desoinated "SHIRE" (PID=kU3955). Here's my GC Log

 

The station was a memorial to sailors lost from the U.S.S. New Hampshire and was built by crew mwmbers. It was established as a third order horizontal control station in 1930.

 

The essence of the description is

A BAND STAND ABOUT 14 METERS IN DIAMETER, WITH LARGE GRANITE PILLARS SUPPORTING A RED CONICAL ROOF. IT IS A MEMORIAL ERECTED BY CREW OF U.S.S. NEW HAMPSHIRE FOR LOST SHIPMATES. STATION IS FINIAL IN CENTER OF ROOF. A CROSS WAS CHISELED ON FLOOR BENEATH THE FINIAL.

but the datasheet also has the line:

MARKER: X = CHISELED CROSS

 

THe memorial is long gone as are all the reference marks, but thec circular area is there in exactly the right place.

 

Here's the area:

The "floor"of the New Hampshire Memorial

 

And right in the center, here's the chiseled cross:

Chiseled cross from "SHIRE"

 

So my questions is, should I log this as FOUND or NOT FOUND?

 

Would (could) a surveyor use the cross as a control point? (I know now-a-days they would likely use a fancy GPS, but play along with this if you will)

 

Would the NGS consider the station as still in it's geodetic control network?

 

I'll put this question on both forums to solicit both professional and hobiest opinions.

 

Thanks

Pb

[+Shifty]

Looks like a find to me. Excellent observing.

 

S

[StripeMark]

hmmmm I would think it would be a DESTROYED in the GeoCaching pages.

 

I would probably e-mail Deb and ask for a official DESTROYED. See what she thinks.

 

Since the station was actually the "FINIAL IN CENTER OF ROOF". It almost seems as though the chiseled cross was an afterthought.

 

just my 2 cents

[ArtMan]

I'd have to side with StripeMark here, at least if my assumption is correct.

 

My assumption is that the descriptive text was entered in 1930. The coding "MARKER: X = CHISELED CROSS" was, I believe, added much more recently. If that is the case, I believe it represents a misreading of the text, which clearly states "STATION IS FINIAL IN CENTER OF ROOF."

 

The question for me is, was the chiseled cross placed in such a way that it has some geodetic value? In other words, was it placed EXACTLY, to use a layman's term, under the finial in such a way that the x and y coordinates for the finial and the chisled X are the same?

 

Since the chiseled cross may itself have some utility, I would not attempt an NGS "destroyed" report. Instead, I would file it as NOT FOUND, noting that the band stand with finial was not observed at the indicated coordinates, but that the (granite?) floor remains and the chiseled X was observed at its center.

 

That way the PID remains in the database, which in this case I think is probably a good idea, from an historic if not a geodetic standpoint.

 

-ArtMan-

 

PS - Papa-Bear-NYC, I wonder if you have any idea what this memorial looked like. Found any photos?

[Papa-Bear-NYC]

I have a line of reasoning which strongly suggest that the chiseled cross was used by the USC&GS in 1932 for geodetic control, but I put them in the thread on the other forum.

 

I would like to ask all interested parties, both NGS folks and others, to follow up on the other thread and let this one die. It was probably a mistake to start two threads on one topic since the discussion is complete on neither one. Sorry!

 

So please go to the other thread: HERE for follow ups.

 

Thanks for all ideas and discussion to date.

 

Pb