English: This image, taken in September, 2010, looks southwest from atop the northern wall of Btty Kellogg, Pit B. Originally this pit contained four 12-inch mortars. The filled in mounting pit (now a filled-in circle of concrete) for the northwest mortar is clearly visible at right-center, as is much of the mounting pit for the northeast mortar. Only a little bit of the circle indicating the former position of the southwest mortar shows beyond the present jumble of old granite curbing piled on top of it. Most of this mounting position and all of that for the southeast mortar have been buried under the pile of earth (now covered with thick vegetation) used around 1992 to construct the ramp leading down into Pit B from Kennedy Drive. Dump trucks that were used to excavate the pit were driven up and down this ramp.
The shadowy portal at rear-center is the entrance from Pit B to the flank magazines for its mortars that were part of the 1910-1914 modifications to the 1896 design. These magazines connect at a right angle to a long, central corridor that extends almost 300 feet west toward the pits of Btty Lincoln and its flank magazines. This portal is protected by a locked rolling steel door. Shells and powder used to be trucked on carts through this portal to serve the four mortars in Pit B.
The pit's data booth (darkened door and viewing slits) is visible in the west wall of the pit. Firing coordinates were received here by telephone from the battery's plotting room atop the earthen cover to the west of the pit. These coordinates were then communicated to the mortar crews in the pits, who used them to aim the mortars.
The earthen cover on the western and southern sides of the pit was some 10 to 20 feet thicker prior to 1955. It was stripped away as part of the redevelopment of the site for municipal and apartment uses.
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(This image, taken in September, 2010, looks southwest from atop the northern wall of Btty Kellogg, Pit B. Originally this pit contained four 12-inch mortars. The filled in mounting pit (now a filled-in circle of concrete) for the northwest mortar is clear)
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