Mardi Work

So after work today, I went looking for evidence that New Yorkers celebrate mardi gras.    I saw this instead . . .  seal?

Not!   Unless seals these days carry flashlights and trail markers and have a support

vessels like Linda Ann, herself supported by W. O. Decker and Peking.

Here is one of a series of six posts I did five years ago about Peking, which moved across the bay that day.    And half a year back, here‘s a post I did about W. O. Decker and Helen McAllister‘s last waltz.   And Wavertree . . .  I regret that in my dozen years wandering the sixth boro, Wavertree has not ONCE left the dock.  I know some of you must have fotos . . . and good memories of her moves, but   I have none.

BUT . . . click here for a mystery vessel with three masts square-rigged in a foto I was given some years back.  Anyone want to take a stab at identifying it?  The conclusion a few years back is that the foto is “‘shopped,”  although it was done some years ago.

My guess is that someone was inspecting Wavertree‘s wet side.

Later I thought I saw a mermaid . . . but I struck out again.

And for the record, after 1700 hr on the E train I finally saw some mardi gras beads . . . worn by a couple going to a party.  I had to ask.

All fotos today by Will Van Dorp.

Spring at South Street Seaport

A year ago I was pessimistic and wrote a bleak post and made this offer.  I have now officially passed some benjamins.   Last Saturday I went back to the South Street Seaport Museum and the new life excited me.  First, there’s this new blog, which I hope continues.  My friend John Watson, volunteer at the museum for decades and frequent contributor on tugster, has been responsible for many of the fotos.

Then, of course, volunteer spirit at SSSM has been irrepressible.  On Saturday February 18, over two dozen volunteers doing winter maintenance worked on or in four of the vessels at least.  A year of idleness has allowed rust to invade everywhere, rust that needs to be busted.

Hammers, chains, power grinders . . . whatever would combine with sweat to prep for rust inhibitor and ultimately new paint was pressed into service. I even set down my camera a few hours and assaulted some areas of rust, just because I enjoyed it.

Leaks were stopped, even if only with temporary fixes for now.

Hatches were sanded and painted.

It’s no simple cliche that rust never sleeps, and big projects like Wavertree require huge infusions of cash and effort to hold off the ravages of time.   But the spirit of volunteerism is also indispensible.This googlemap view shows where all the current museum vessels used to park.  Can you name them all?  Some may still go to better places.

Ambrose and Lettie G. Howard often docked in the open space here;  they are off-site for repair and refurbishing before they return.What really impressed me was inside Schermerhorn Row.  Floor 3 has “Super Models,”  ship replicas from the collection, smartly displayed.

It also has “Bottled Up,”  miniature vessels in glass.  And if you want to see how ships navigate the bottleneck, you can find a display on that too.

Contemporary hand tools are used rust-busting the ships outside, but Floor 4 has “Hand Held Devices,” an installation of scores of historic hand tools, some of

which you might not recognize, but

then there’s an interactive display that can

help with that too.

Floor 5 has “Coffee, Tea, Fish, and the Tattooed Man,” all

tributes to trades that once transacted just outside the building on the docks.

On the way back down, stop again on Floor 3 for a set of Edward Burtynsky‘s stunning fotos of shipbreaking in Bangladesh.

But don’t take my word for any of this. There’s more than I describe here.  And more to come . . . like the re-opening of some form of research library . . . .   Become a member.  Come and visit.  Stop by and bust rust.   The barge name here describes what’s happening at the Museum.

South Street Seaport is once again

alive!  My fotos don’t really do it justice.  Bravo to all who made this happen.

South Street Ex-port 2

Just a quick update:  I’ve heard from 11 people–some on email–willing to put up some money.  I intended this as pledging a la Public Radio/Television.  I had imagined that once a sizeable amount of money was pledged and a goal for the money was agreed upon, we could collect the money.  May Day–the seasonal one–arrives soon.  The dire one I hope never arrives.  To fuel the discussion, I’m putting up fotos never before (I think) never posted here.  Like Peking,

Lettie,

Helen and Marion, Pioneer without the orange raft,

Adam flaking,

schooners side by side,

Wavertree,

more Peking at Caddell’s,

and Decker.

Ambrose soon.  All fotos by will Van Dorp.

South Street Ex-port

I’m offering to give away a Benjamin Franklin, or a half dozen.  And I’ll do it before May Day!!   See the end of the post.

The foto below–never posted here before–comes from 2005 and shows “the schooners,”  a handsome Pioneer (1885) and elegant Lettie G. Howard (1893), 244 years of sailing between them.    On a personal note, I logged in over 600 hours as a volunteer on these two boats as well as on W. O. Decker between 2004–2006.  That means winter maintenance as well as summer sailing.

Such nautical treasures are these vessels (left to right:  Marion M, Wavertree, W. O. Decker, and Peking) and so many fine folks, volunteers as well as professional crew, did I meet during this time . .  that

current developments at that place created as South Street Seaport break my heart and then make me angry.

When word on the street says Museum administration is looking to  ”send its working ships to ports elsewhere for long-term storage” and otherwise declining comment on the crumbling state of affairs, I hope to hear that these same administrators abdicate their positions.  These vessels are no white elephants.  These are no “floating paperweights.”

During my years as an active volunteer, I knew this place could be much more than a red barn with seven masts sticking up above it.

Conditions of giving away my Benjamins:  current Museum president Mary Pelzer resign effective immediately and  a committee focused on the vessels be installed forthwith.  And, I’d like 1000 people (former volunteers, boat fans, former professional crew members, just plain fans of these vessels, or friends and friends of friends of any of the above)  to pledge at least a Benjamin each to be deposited with a trustworthy  and maricentric steward by May 1, 2011.   This could be the “seaport spring.”  Let’s not let this go to May Day.

See the selection below from yesterday’s New York Post.   Here’s info on a “Save our Ships” meeting for April 28.   All fotos above by Will Van Dorp.

“Abandoning ships: City’s old vessels lost in fog of debt, neglect,” New York Post, April 25. “Rotting wood covers their decks, their masts are flaked with rust, and their hulls are corroding. New York’s last tall ships — once-proud symbols of the Big Apple’s rise to greatness — are in a shameful state of disrepair as the museum that’s supposed to care for them sinks in a Bermuda Triangle of debt and bad management. Seaport Museum New York has closed its landside galleries and is looking to send its working ships to ports elsewhere for long-term storage. The museum’s stationary ships — Peking, one of the biggest sailing ships ever built, Wavertree, a three-masted cargo ship, and Ambrose, a lightship that a century ago guided sailors into New York harbor — face an unknown fate. ‘Those ships, which are emblematic of our heritage on the waterfront, are almost being left to rot,’ said Roland Lewis, president of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, a coalition of nonprofit groups. . . . The museum declined comment, except to say it is ‘exploring various options’ to maintain its vessels.”

Few Ships Here

This is called doing penance . . .  Torm Kristina . . .  I checked high and low for square-rigged masts . .  and found none.  Hmmm . . .  must be a motor vessel, not a ship at all.

Same for MSC  Linzie.

Valcadore.  Nope.

Hilda Knutsen . . .  I thought she was promising, but no dice.

Stena Performance . . . sorry.    She too is a motor vessel.

Ever Develop . . . same negatory once again.

I guess I’ll have to make my way up to the East (non) River

to find a real ship.  And what a ship she is:  when Karl Kortum located her on the River Platte, 80 years old and converted into a scow for transporting dredge spoils, the locals refered to her as “el gran velero,” i.e., the great sailboat.  As a sailing ship, she once called in the New York harbor . . .  Erie Basin, to be exact . . .  in January 14  1895, arriving in exactly three months from Taltal, Chile. Yup, that was pre-Panamax of any sort.  She stayed in the sixth boro,  albeit the Bayonne side of it, until March 21, 1895, when she sailed for Calcutta . . .  making a passage of  just over four months. As to cargo, I’d wager nitrates to New York, and petroleum product (kerosene) to Calcutta.

All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.  The info on the ship Wavertree aka el gran velero comes from the fine book called The Wavertree, published by South Street Seaport in 1969, the year she arrived in NYC.

Does anyone have fotos on Wavertree‘s arival in NYC, similar to these for Peking?   Check out NYTimes article from January 12,  1969 and another from December 27,  1975.