Gabe's got the right idea about Duke Riley...I hope the judge is a history buff too...
The other day a Brooklyn artist caused what the tabloids described as ''a terror scare'' by bringing a replica of a Revolutionary War submarine close to the Queen Mary.The story was headlined ''Sub-Standard Brains'' in one newspaper -- after the artist and the friends who towed his contraption into sight of the Queen Mary were taken into custody. Perhaps the artist didn't anticipate the stir he would create as helicopters, police boats and cops with machine guns converged on the egg-shaped wooden vessel -- but for history buffs it was a moment to savor.
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And, when that original submarine set out on its mission, no other than George Washington was at the Battery to cheer the hero on.
The date was Sept. 7, 1776 -- and David Bushnell, a Yale graduate, designed the submarine and persuaded Washington to let him try it out. The contraption was called ''Bushnell's Turtle'' and, according to historian Edward Ellis, the Turtle was large enough for just one man to stand inside. He used two foot-operated pumps to ascend or descend and a hand crank to turn a wooden propeller. The plan was to blow up one of the British warships anchored in New York Harbor.
A whaleboat towed the submarine to the foot of Whitehall Street at the Battery. A magazine containing 130 pounds of gunpowder was attached to the submarine. The idea was to detach the magazine from the Turtle and fasten it to a warship with a timing device that would give the pilot, Sergeant Ezra Lee of Lyme, Conn., 30 minutes to escape.
It was midnight and very dark. Washington and some of his officers watched from the Battery as Lee steered his egg-shaped contraption toward the target -- Admiral Howe's flagship, the Eagle.
But Lee was unable to attach the magazine with the gunpowder to the warship's keel. He had to set the container adrift and it exploded in the East River. Lee managed to crank his submarine back to the Battery, where Washington and the others congratulated him for his courage. Red-coated British soldiers standing on Governors Island had witnessed the incident and one British officer wrote: ''the ingenuity of these people is singular in their secret modes of mischief.''Interestingly, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly used similar language about the current incident, saying it could best be described as ''marine mischief.'
'But Riley has a date with a judge on August 28. ''I know I've scared some people and I know I wasted a lot of people's time, but also a lot of people were amused by it. I don't know if I regret it. I'm sure when I know how the judge reacts I'll have a better idea.
''It the judge is a history buff, maybe Duke Riley will get a break.
