Few know it exists. Fewer still have seen it with their own eyes. But it’s there, lying at the heart of a maze of narrow footpaths amid the towering reeds of Liberty State Park.
A journey to this mysterious site ends when the reeds give way to reveal an entire civilization in miniature. Thousands of tiny, individual bricks form a castle complete with turrets, ramparts and stairways. The petite fortress seems to have lain abandoned for years. And indeed it has – 23 years, to be precise.
The castle is actually a piece of public art named Lost City that was commissioned in 1984 from New York sculptor Charles Simonds. It’s just one of hundreds of diminutive landscapes Simonds has built across the country.
Park literature doesn’t advertise the sculpture because wildlife uses the marshy area, park superintendent Josh Osowski says. Osowski recommends a tour guide for any trips through the 10-foot-tall, likely insect-filled reeds. However, for anyone willing to settle for a bird’s-eye view of this little-known curiosity, Lost City can actually be seen – very faintly – in satellite images of the park.