What, you ask, is this strange thing? Here's all I know:
The miniature castle is “about two feet tall and seven feet across” and was constructed in 1984 by Charles Simonds, a sculptor whose work is included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art and who is known for his miniature dwellings, which he installed in outdoor spaces throughout Manhattan.
Leon Yost, a documentary photographer who specializes in images of Jersey City, says, “Simonds lived in New York City and taught college in Newark. In the early 1970s he began constructing a series of hidden mythical worlds designed to be discovered only by chance. Simonds created three works for Liberty State Park, but this is the only one we can find. The other two are presumably lost among the reeds in the marshes. I think the New Jersey State Council on the Arts was probably involved in the original commissioning of the three works.”
Fascinating.
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