uring the late '40s and '50s New York was one of the targets for an airborne Soviet nuclear attack, according to Donald Bender, a consultant for the Department of Defense. However, during the '60s and beyond, long-range missiles became a more dangerous threat than manned planes.

For that reason, between the '40s and '60s many missile and radar facilities were created in the New York City metropolitan area.

"These are the Defense Command ‘Nike’ surface-to-air missile sites," he says. "These sites were created in the mid '50s as a last line of defense against a possible Soviet bomber attack."

If the Air Force could not stop the bombers far offshore, these missiles were available as a last-ditch defense to shoot them down."

Missile Battery NY 54, in Holmdel, N.J. Nineteen missile bases like this one were created in the New York metropolitan area in the fifties.

There are at least 25 missile sites remaining today in New York City and its surrounding areas, says Bender. There’s the old Hart Island Nike missile site, on western Long Island, where the underground missile storage magazines can still be seen there today. There’s also a Nike missile site in Fort Tilden, Queens, and some antiaircraft gun batteries in the New York City area.

"One was located near the Aqueduct race track. Another was at Fort Totten, Queens. Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island, also had an air defense command post for Army Nike missile batteries in the area through 1960."

Bender has a background in the business sector. However, 10 years ago, he began exploring the remains of old Cold War era Nike missile sites in the New York area as a hobby. Today he works as a historic preservation consultant on Cold War era facilities.

He is assisting the state of New York with research on the Montauk Air Force Station. Established in 1948 on the easternmost tip of Long Island, the station was a radar site designed to detect Soviet bombers and was one of the first sites of its kind, he says.

"I'll be helping them with a restoration of the huge radar antenna, which was abandoned by the Air Force in 1981," says Bender. "And with efforts to present the history of the site to the public, the old base at Montauk is going to become a public park in the near future."