Fort Independence — Attraction in Boston

Quick summary: Well maintained fort with beautiful views. However the volunteer organization that handles visitors provides horrendous customer service, confusing information, and unimpressive tours.

In greater detail, this is a beautiful fortress. A great example of a smaller Third System (1830's onward) fortification that matches in design with the larger Fort Warren out in the bay. It is in very good repair, and the surrounding grounds are well maintained and have lots of recreational amenities, including restrooms, a fishing pier, and a large playground.

However the organization that runs the tours (The Castle Island Association) provides terrible visitor service. Hence the two star rating. For starters, their website a states the interior of the fort is open on weekends from 12:00-3:30pm. It also mentions that tours are given by volunteers. However it doesn't not state that the ONLY way to see the interior is to take a tour. If you are hoping to just wander the walls to channel your inner Civil War sentry, find another fort. The tours are only given at certain times and other wise the gate is closed. The fort is quite popular, so expect to wait in line for quite a while before getting in. Once you are inside the walls, you are corraled into one small corner until the tour launches if you wander away slightly, you get snapped at by some very rude volunteers. The tour has two options, the "short" tour of just the upper ramparts, or the "long" tour of some of the casemate rooms and the upper deck. The guide divided the people up by saying "If you can't pay attention, have a child, or just want some pretty pictures, go on the short tour. If you want to learn some history go on the long tour." I'm not sure if this was a joke, but it just came across as demeaning to large portion of the people visiting. The tour itself was lackluster at best. The guide had a basic but incomplete knowledge of fortresses, and a very poor speaking voice. It was hard to hear him even inside the rooms. He also tended to blow off visitor questions and was rude to the point of hostility to an enthusiastic 10 year old visitor. The tour was also trailed by another guide who was rudely insistent on visitors giving complete attention to the guide speaking even if they were just trying to take some pictures. This all seemed to contradict the introduction of "this is a really informal tour and you can ask questions whenever you want."

While the strict visitation rules perhaps contribute in some small fashion to the fantastic condition the fort is in, the overall impression I get is this Castle Island Association does not want people to actually visit and they would rather the structure exist as their private clubhouse. I feel this is a rather shameful use of a public resource. I can only hope Massachusetts DCR will take a larger roles in managing the site. If keeping it closed is necessary for safety or preservation, so be it, but it is far for better for a public entity to make that determination.

All this aside, if you want to see at fortress in Boston, skip Fort Independence. Cough up the cash to take the ferry out to Fort Warren. Much larger site, and much better tours run by Massachusetts State...

A truly wonderful experience! The tour guide was very knowledgable, and explained the history of the settlement, the materials used to build it, and it's applications today. What you may have thought was concrete, is actually oyster shell lime. Whatever that is. The fort was also a refugee camp for dirty redcoats during the Stamp Act Crisis and the Boston Massacre. Following this, the fort was an integral defense structure against the British during the revolutionary war. Despite it's tactical and well thought out design, the fort proved to be too weak in the final hours of the Great War, and the subsequent Boston bombings in the 21st century. The fort is now used as headquarters for The Minutemen, a private militia dedicated to helping the people of Boston under the motto "Defending the people at a minutes notice". My tour suffered many distractions, such as the sounds of construction crews repairing and maintaining the walls, people mistaking the structure for The Pentagon, a crab infestation (Those Spider crabs are huge!) , and a blimp flying overhead repeatedly announcing "Do not interfere, our intentions are peaceful" before mooring off at Boston Logan. The fort also broadcasts marching music through their "Radio Freedom" station. At one point, Taps was playing on repeat for several hours, which forced me to stand at attention and render a salute until the song stopped looping. The first sergeant of the militia, David Worthy, gave me 200 pushups after catching me with my hands in my pocket. The leader of the Minutemen, a spry young man by the name of Preston Garvey, apologized for the inconvenience, and paid me 100 bottlecaps for my trouble. Despite these shortcomings, I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Fort Independence, and would gladly visit...

At first when I got there with the minutemen the whole castle was infested with mirlurks and there was a big mirlurk queen, so I got my fat man and shot that beast. Then with the help of the minutemen I was able to fix up the wall with mods and everything was going great. But then a few days later I was enemy's of the institute and they attacked us by sending hundreds of synths. But they had failed and we where victories after that I snuck in to the institute to attack back and I was successful then I sent in my minutemen troops which I had given they all power armor and laser rifles with the help if some mods, then we blew up the institute and after we went back to the castle and there Preston told me that it was time to deal with the brotherhood of steel and so we blew it up with the artillery missiles but some brotherhood soldiers survived the blast and were coming to attack us with verty birds but my minutemen were better than them so we had been victories. And we did this the minutemen, mods, and...