I received this on another newsgroup. Oddly, a search of the Record site
doesn't seem to throw up this story (too recent?), but there are some
previous articles. This one is interesting for the "personal memory" aspect,
which certainly adds a lot to the usual "Heritage" arguments.
David
From Times-Herald Record
>>
>> http://preview.tinyurl.com/55e4fc
>>
>> Memories of a Cold War relic: Secret bunker at former Stewart Air Force
>> Base
>> dazzled youth, inspired career
>>
>> By Jeremiah Horrigan
>> Times Herald-Record
>> December 09, 2008
>>
>> NEWBURGH - Like plenty of 10-year-old boys with a passion for machinery,
>> Stephen Poje loved hanging around in the basement with his dad. Except
>> the
>> basement of Stephen Poje's youth was a top-secret bulwark against the
>> possibility of nuclear holocaust.
>>
>> Poje's dad was an engineer in the late 1950s and early '60s in the
>> basement
>> power plant that supported the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment
>> Building, a
>> massive four-story concrete bunker on the edge of what was then Stewart
>> Air
>> Force Base.
>>
>> Memories of Beaver Dam Lake boyhood days spent inside a top-secret
>> bastion
>> of the Cold War were triggered by a recent article in the Times
>> Herald-Record about a group that continues to hope to make a Cold War
>> museum
>> of the building.
>>
>> If young Poje's time in the SAGE Building basement was cool by kid
>> standards, his periodic trips up the stairs (accompanied by an adult) to
>> the
>> building's top-floor war room were almost unbelievably cool.
>>
>> What he found there was what he believes must have been among the first
>> interactive video displays, something he remembers as resembling the
>> vintage
>> Nintendo "Duck Hunt" video game:
>>
>> "They could point this sort of pistol with a wire going to the computer
>> at a
>> radar blip and find out what kind of plane it was, if it had a flight
>> plan,
>> what its trajectory was - whether it was friend or foe."
>>
>> He wasn't burdened by the building's mission. Instead, he said, "The
>> technology captured me."
>>
>> His fascination became his life's mission. He grew up and became a marine
>> engineer, helped design nuclear reactors for submarines, and became
>> superintendent of Three Mile Island. ("It was running when I left it.")
>> He
>> lives in Indiana, Pa., and is employed as an engineer by General Electric
>> Corp.
>>
>> Washingtonville High School teacher Dawn Vandervloed has used the SAGE
>> Building's history to construct a lesson plan aimed at ensuring that her
>> students never forget its historical significance.
>>
>> Her global history classes just finished creating a variety of projects
>> meant to illustrate student understanding of the Cold War and whether or
>> not
>> they thought a "peace museum" commemorating that era was justifiable,
>> especially in tight economic times.
>>
>> The Port Authority of New York, which has control of the long-abandoned
>> building, has shown zero interest in helping establish a museum. But
>> Vandervloed and many of her students disagree:
>>
>> "It makes sense to me. This region's a great place for historical
>> museums,
>> but they're all colonial sites. History kept on being made after that."
>>
>>
>> --------------------
>>
>>
>> Couple of pictures on the website
>>
>> During a press tour in 2003, visitors gathered in the war room in the
>> former
>> SAGE Building at Stewart International Airport. A local group is
>> interested
>> in turning the building into a Cold War museum.
>>
>> The old Semi Automatic Ground Environment building at Stewart
>> International
>> Airport seen in May 2002.
>
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