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Ten months ago I did this post of the 1905 ferry Binghamton. Twenty months ago I did this one, this and this with many interior shots at that time. The foto below dates from October 2011 just after Irene.
Here was Binghamton this morning, a work of disintegrative art, refusing to buckle in spite of Sandy.
North end October 2011 and
today, June 2013.
South end 2011 and
peeled back 2013.
Closer up as seen from the right bank 20 months ago and
now.
See a Flickr foto of a NJ historical marker no longer memorializing the wreck, click here. In its place, someone has had the good sense to inscribe the walls of the guardhouse with the 94-year-old words of a gallivanting Edna St Vincent Millay.
How will she fare in the next 10 months?
For a beautifully illustrated report on the life of the ferry prepared by Bill Lee, click here.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Unrelated but cool story here about a 61-year-old immigrant to US circumnavigating in a 24′ sailboat!!
I hope you’re enjoying this time warp as much as I am.
Foto #1. Princess Bay northbound through the Old Bay Draw.
Foto #2. When I first met this vessel, she was known as Kristin Poling. Click here and here for fotos including some of her last month before scrapping.
Fotos #3 and 4. Reliable II northbound and . . .
showing the sculptural beauty of her house.
Foto #5. Here’s another YO turned tanker turned reef, A. H. Dumont. I’d love to hear about the condition of these reefed vessels from anyone who’s dived the Jersey offshore.
Foto #6. John J. Tabeling doing what tug/barge units do today . . . . bunkering. Tabeling was scrapped in 2005; Statendam was scrapped in 2004.
Foto #7. Another shot of Tabeling, here exiting the east end of the KVK. Foto is taken looking toward Richmond Terrace, current location of the salt pile.
Foto #8. Question . . . is this Mary A. Whalen? Here and here are fotos of the ambassador vessel of PortSide NewYork. Many more can be found by adding the vessel name in the search window upper left.
All fotos taken by Seth Tane around 30 years ago.
Here are some more fotos by Seth Tane in the late 1970s /early 1980s.
Foto#1. Princess Bay just south of the Old Bay Draw, placing her about a mile of her place of construction. Anyone know what happened to her, last known as Mabel L? She was launched from Elizabethport the same year as Coral Queen.
Foto #2. Jet Trader heads for the Arthur Kill. Today Jet Trader has a new life as . . .
reef, among sunken NYC subway cars and army tanks off Atlantic City. Here’s a foto of her last voyage on the hip of Taurus. Click here to see fotos of motor tankers, subway cars, and army tanks being reefed. Have you or someone you know had the experience of diving on these reefs and care to share the experience?
Fotos 3 and 4. Mystic Sun waited in the Morris Canal for its last voyage to the scrappers in Kearney. Can anyone identify the tugboats here?
Here’s the bow of Mystic Sun. Here’s a detailed history of Sunmarine. Mystic Sun started life in 1944, launched from East Coast Shipyards in Bayonne as AOG 38 and was scrapped in 1981, dating this foto. Here are other AOGs in dazzle paint.
Last foto, #5. Mary Gellatly, the tanker incarnation. Click here and scroll for a recent foto of the current Mary Gellatly in the sixth boro. Who was the long-revered namesake? And anyone know the details of the launch and demise of this tanker?
Many thanks to Seth Tane for these fabulous fotos of sixth boro history.
Here is just one of the many posts I’ve done on Janice Ann Reinauer, now working in Nigeria under new ownership. Here’s a post I did featuring her and siblings about to leave almost exactly two years ago, high and dry on Blue Marlin. Of course, the skyline in the background shows that here–about 30 years ago–she was getting some attention at the drydock over in Jersey City just north of the Morris Canal.
Here’s a closer-up of the yard tug on the shoreside of the drydock. Can anyone fill in more info on this fairweather vessel?
Here are two shots looking at what is now a very different Jersey City bank.
Only the lettering Bert Reinauer II offers clues here. Anyone know the vessel to the left? Bill Lynch speculates it’s pilot boat New York (1972), and I’m inclined to think he’s right.
And finally, a repeat foto from yesterday . . . in addition to the identification sent through comments by tugboathunter and jeff s, here’s what Harold’s eureka moment came up with . . . revealing a bit of his process: “ I finally cracked the case on that green unidentifiable tug. I looked at that photo, got away from it several times after tearing my hair out, and finally went back. Saying to myself, ’That boat looks familiar. I’ve seen it in the last few years painted a different color. The Tug Races, that’s it, the Tug Races.’ ” Interjection: here’s a post I did in 2007 showing what Harold remembers.
Harold continues: “She was built in 1959 in Norfolk, Va. (yard unknown) as SHRIKE. She was later renamed SALLY, and then BILL MATHER (that’s where the MATHER comes in from my observation). I couldn’t make out the name BILL. She was MONAHAN before becoming LONG SPLICE. Her owner in 1993, as MONAHAN according to Carl’s records was Monahan Towing Co. I looked in a 1978 MERCHANT VESSELS OF THE UNITED STATES, under BILL MATHER, and found her owners as Tug Leasing Corp., Delaware. A final look in a MERCHANT VESSELS OF THE UNITED STATES 1965 under SHRIKE shows her owners as Southern Tug Corp.”
Again, all these vintage fotos, which allow this time travel, come compliments of Seth Tane. Click here for his current endeavors.
Here and here are two posts I’ve done on Harold.
Finally, I’ve written to folks in Nigeria to attempt to get fotos of boats there formerly here . . . still to no effect. Anyone help?
More Seth Tane fotos.
Foto #1. It’s 1979, 34 years ago. What I see is no structure on Pier 17 Manhattan, lots of covered warehouses and a ship on the Brooklyn side. Extreme lower right of foto . . . is that the floating hospital? There’s another large white vessel to the left of lightship Ambrose. There’s a vacant lot just to the south of the Brooklyn side access to the Bridge. And a large ATB looking tug in the Navy Yard. What have I missed?
Foto #2. W. O. Decker–in my posts here and here and many other places–comes to pick up a tow, Poling #16. Digression: if you do Facebook, here’s the Marion M (shown in the second Decker link there) updates site with fotos. Lots of intriguing details in the background of the Navy yard here.
Foto #3 Driving Decker here is most likely Geo Matteson, author of Tugboats of New York. A 2013 “reshoot” of this cityscape is a “must do.”
Foto #4. Tied up at Pier 17, Decker remakes the tow to get the tanker alongside.
All fotos by Seth Tane.
If you’re interested in collaborating in a documentation of the changing harbor, particularly the evolving articulation between the sixth boro and the other five, please contact me. See address upper left side.
This “fleetless” 2013 fleet week in the sixth boro is an ideal time to look back at previous fleet visits, using these vintage fotos taken almost a third of a century ago by Seth Tane. Here’s my “fleeted” fleet week fotos from 2012.
Foto #1. USS Mount Whitney arrives in town with airship escort. Which lightship might that be off LCC-20′s port bow? My thanks to Jed for identification of LCC-20.
Foto #2. Victory ship USNS Twin Falls as campus for Food and Maritime Trade high School rafted up along the North River with Liberty ship SS John W. Brown, a floating nautical high school. Which pier# or street were these docked at? Can anyone share fotos taken inside these unique school vessels?
Foto #3. Comparing with this foto of Wire WYTL 65612 taken less than a year ago, it appears changes have been made over the past 30 years to her house. Also, notice the “previous” version of the Staten Island ferry terminal off her starboard.
Foto #4. Seatrain Lines vessel Transindiana after some altercation. Transindiana was initially built as a WWII USN transport vessel. Enjoy these other Seatrain fotos.
Foto #5. Intrepid initially arrives in the North River to begin service as a museum ship. The foto is taken from a vessel on Pier 9 in Jersey City.
All fotos thanks to Seth Tane. And, I again invite your comments and reminiscences. If you missed it, here was the first installment of this series.
Here’s the treat I’ll leave you with for a few days. The twin towers in the background should clearly state we aren’t in Kansas or 2013 anymore. Please comment on your speculations. Foto #1
This is from the converging waters just south of the Battery. Notice the towers to the right. Foto#2
Note the stripe on Coursen‘s bow. Foto #3
Note the I-beam structure to the right. Foto #4
Note the relative positions of the towers and the Manhattan-side Holland Tunnel vent. Foto #5
Again, thanks in advance for your comments and reminiscences.
Source will be credited soon.
This gateway to the sixth boro dazzles at dawn, with out traffic or with.
Know this ship? You saw this funnel before in a foggy October post as well as in a sunny September post in the past twelve months.
Here are the specs for the 12-year-old vessel going under the almost 50-year-old bridge.
In the distance, that’s the Newark Bay Bridge, located north of Ports Elizabeth and Newark.
Inbound . . .
outbound, and
closely monitored.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who finally watched Saturday Night Fever for the first time, because of the bridges scenes. It turned out to be a much better movie than this non-discoing blogger ever imagined. See it if you haven’t, for a throwback to Bay Ridge (mostly) back in 1977 . . . which started with a president named Ford , new computers were Commodore PETs and Apple IIs, and the Concorde started to fly to NYC.
Is it a vestige of a past whose
artifacts are mostly
disappearing? Or
is it an enterprise of
what is
to come?
Read how the Danes and Dutch already do it. These Dutch from Tres Hombres wanted to sail into the sixth boro last year but were stymied by red tape. Then there’s the Vermont working sailcraft project discussed here. Andrew Wilner has more examples in his blog here. Here’s a veritable bibliography of hybrid sail ideas.
Working Harbor Committee presents a panel discussion of this topic tonight from 6 pm — 9 pm in Manhattan. Click here for details.
All fotos here by Will Van Dorp. The disintegrating sailboat fotos were taken near Bear Mountain last weekend, and the Black Seal three-masted schooner fotos date from when it delivered 20 tons of cocoa beans to Red Hook in June 2011. Here and here are related blog posts I did back then.
What’s this . . on tugster, a bit of sidewalk with some not yet busted stains better know as gum spots? But look at the date and info on the black granite plaque below, one of 200 or so that commemorate past ticker tape parade along Broadway in Lower Manhattan.
It turns out that Capt. George Fried is honored on two of these medallions for two of these rescues. Never heard of Capt George Fried?
Neither had I. So here’s info on Capt Fried and more. More on Fried, and still more with a quite flattering portrait. Here’s a story on SS President Roosevelt and a short narrative of the rescue of crew of the Antinoe. From googlebooks, here’s a longer account of the rescue with art. Here’s an account of the second rescue conducted by Fried and crew (See section “The Habitual Hero”), this time Fried as captain of SS America and the Italian vessel SS Florida.
Happy February 16.
Given a recent cruise ship rescue . . . suppose there’ll be any ticker tape parades and plaques involved?
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