The Allure of the Abandoned

The Allure of the Abandoned:
Bannerman’s Castle in Music

photo by meadows

Peter Bussigel’s “Bannerman’s Castle”

Bannerman’s Castle, a now-abandoned military surplus warehouse on the eastern shore of the Hudson River, is situated on the fittingly enigmatic Pollepel Island. Following the death of its owner, businessman Francis Bannerman VI in 1918, the castle was struck by a series of disasters that left the building in a state of half-destruction. The island, named after the freighter and passenger barge that exploded and crashed into it during a devastating storm, has long maintained its reputation as a site of spectral presence and activity. In Native American lore, the island is said to host unfriendly and unwelcoming spirits; early Dutch settlers, too, sensed a menacing presence on Pollepel, what they referred to as the “Heer of Dunderberg”—a mean-spirited fiend who, to quote Wikipedia, “inhabits the Highlands and doesn't like visitors.”

It seems fitting that Pollepel Island and its decaying caste should have such an aura of inhospitality; the property has repeatedly fallen victim to trespass and, unfortunately, to human tampering and vandalism. Bannerman Island, as it is often called, has joined the likes of Bennet College in Millbrook, NY and the Holy Cross Reform School in Rhinecliff, as a site of interest for thrill-seekers and spray-can-toting teens, ghost hunters and dedicated ruins explorers alike. The Hudson Valley is filled with such abandoned sites, most of which have an undeniably peculiar history. For a surprising number of active explorers and enthusiasts, abandoned architecture has developed into a full-blown field of hobby and study, of research and photography, of archiving and preservation.

The inherent appeal of the abandoned and unihabited has engendered, for better or for worse, what is now a widespread engagement of the public with the once-private. Whatever the negative consequences of this relationship, it can hardly be denied that the respectful and well-intentioned interest and involvement on the part of committed individuals has achieved a great deal in the preservation of both the history and the mythos surrounding abandoned buildings and sites.

Bannerman’s Castle has earned a certain degree of cultural recognition, appearing in works of literature, film and music. Its various treatments in art range from that of contemplative admiration to unabashed exploitation (for example, “Bannerman Castle makes a two-second appearance in the Michael Bay movie Transformers: Dark of the Moon as one of the sites, along with Angkor Wat, of the Pillars that transports Cybertron to Earth”). One particular piece of music, Peter Bussigel’s “Bannerman’s Castle,” deserves recognition as a thoughtful and evocative response to the decaying property.

Bussigel, a graduate student in Brown University’s Computer Music and Multimedia program, whose work spans the media of Video Art, Sound Installation and Audio-Visual Performance, explains that, “The piece grew from years of staring out of the train window while traveling along the Hudson River to visit my parents and childhood home.” Drawing from his own personal experiences with the property and the unique impressions that it left, Bussigel crafts an enchanting and startlingly befitting musical response to the abandoned castle. His description of the piece’s meaning and essence reinforces its subjective significance—as he states, “The combination of the train and the castle and whichever future you happen to be lost in is stunning and surreal”—but while listening, one cannot help but sense a more direct connection between the piece and its subject; in this musical representation of one person’s unique experience with an abandoned site, a site brimming with mythological connotations, Bussigel crafts a universally-appreciable and intrinsically-related musical embodiment of the castle’s allure.

“Bannerman’s Castle was commissioned by the Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra and was premiered May 13, 2006. It is scored for large orchestra [2-picc-2-2-bcl-2 . 4-3-2-1 . harp-timp-perc(3)-strings].”
For further reading on Bannerman’s Castle and other such sites in the Hudson Valley, check out Rob Yasinsac’s www.hudsonvalleyruins.org. Here’s a link to the Bannerman Island page:
http://www.hudsonvalleyruins.org/yasinsac/bannerman/bannerman.html