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Previously I’ve alluded to growing up on a working dairy farm, and the aging farm boy in me immediately recognizes the bundles there as some quite weathered straw. Cut the twine holding them together and there’s still some serviceable bedding in there for cows. But what structure is this?
Can straw and hay be a product of transshipment through the sixth boro . . . transferred by those cranes? Don’t those cranes look like the ones in the Brooklyn Navy Yard?
Surely this would be the largest hay barn I’ve ever seen. What’s going on here?
Falconia works in the livestock trade. Click on the link in the previous sentence to see her itinerary. Here and here are previous posts I’ve done on this enterprise. And this particular vessel, I first saw in the Port of Wilmington back in mid-October; whatever was happening, she entered the sixth boro over a month ago under tow, as captured here by John Watson.
The white-red-blue flag here is the banner of the aptly-named Corral Line. Search around that link a bit and you’ll find views of the interior of the vessels, scenes I’d love to see.
Falconia is the saltwater version of the Amazonian livestock carriers pictured here . . . fotos 11 and 12.
My uninformed guess is that the 1973 Norway-built Falconia is here with propulsion issues. Click here for what may be a fairly new foto of the vessel.
Click here for many fotos of livestock vessels. Meanwhile, I’ve got to get to the movie Life of Pi, which–if the book is any indication–has scenes of a ship transporting a zoo, unsuccessfully.
All fotos here by Will Van Dorp, who still has many fotos from the Mississippi Valley.
Ooooolala! What’s this? Make your way to Atlantic Basin ASAP; click here for tickets … only two shows Saturday (tonight!) and two Sunday left, before the floating burlesque sails over the horizon.
Staging this burlesque is barquentine Gazela, whose first life fishing for cod continued until the year Armstrong stepped onto the moon. Yessir, this fine vessel served as a dory boat until 1969!
Up to 35 dories (many built in the Merrimack Valley north of Cape Ann) like the one in the foreground here served “mothership” Gazela.
Daytime tours of Gazela as well as nighttime entertainment can be had only through this weekend! This is also the last chance (for a while) to see Mary Whalen at Pier 11. For directions to Pier 11, click here.
So I went to the show “The Seven Deadly Seas” the other night. Before the show, the devil’s advocate (of the Flaming Cherries) emerges from the nether portions of the ship, and
the city darkens as the band begins to play. See the twinkling Manhattan lights off in the distance.
Feisty bawds dueling over everything
can be charmed only by
dancing
and more dancing and
still more dancing that sometimes lead to … lost clothing.
Come learn the story of Calico Jack, who imagined he had all the skills needed to thrive on Wall Street.
Bring a dozen friends and make it the most memorable night of the summer, the summer of Atlantic Basin as prime offshore Broadway.
Will Calico Jack swing here, or is it Camp Butner FCC for him?
Don’t miss the boat.
Fotos by Eric Lorgus (some taken in Philadephia) and Will Van Dorp.
Can you guess the connection between the three fotos that follow? Gazela –540 hp, the oldest wooden square-rigger sailing in the United States, built in Portugal in 1901 (?) to fish cod, and Philadelphia’s tall ship.
Pati R. Moran, 5100 hp and built in Maine in 2007
and “pirate Calico Jack, who, unbeknownst to his crew, has decided toget out of the pirate business, and has sailed to Wall Street to make some business deals, secure a401k, and plan his retirement.”
Once more, Gazela,
Pati R, and
… who’s this with Calico Jack!
Well, buy your tickets here for “The Seven Deadly Seas.” Read a review from the Philadelphia CityPaper here.
Bringing Gazela and crew/acting troupe to Atlantic Basin is the result of hard work of PortSide NewYork. ”About bringing her to NYC, Eric Lorgus, President of Gazela, had this to say, ‘Tall ships have found it increasinglyhard to visit this place, and I’ve been trying to crack NYC foryears. We really appreciate the efforts PortSide has made on ourbehalf. Carolina herself has pursued this will tenacity and zeal.’
Carolina Salguero, Director of PortSide NewYork says about the visit ‘PortSide was founded to bring the BlueSpace, or the waterpart of the waterfront, to life in New York City. We are excited that Gazela is coming, because tall ships are education and inspiration afloat. We hope her visit opens the door to more visits by more boats—of all types—at this pier and other piers.We are encouraged by recent government initiatives focusing onthe water itself and grateful that the EDC [New York City Economic Development Corp] has made Pier 11 available to us for Gazela’s visit.’
Gazela will be open for deck tours during the day. These arerun on an open-house basis. To defray costs of the trip, a modest $5 donation is being requested, but is not mandatory. The cabaretalso subsidizes the trip.”
As to the connection between Gazela and Pati R., I’m leaving that open to your guesses for a few days yet.
See press release here. Show dates are August 19–22, 8 pm and 10 pm shows, for a total of eight shows.
Fotos 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7 by Will Van Dorp. Show fotos are compliments of Peter Gaffney of Cabaret Red Light.
This post breaks the record for number of fotos, but the very existence of waterway focused on, yesterday as well, Coney Island Creek, is thought by some to be the stuff of urban legend. A little over a mile long, CIC spanned by a handful of bridges and blocked off under the Belt Parkway; it encompasses a world in that distance, and once was on the drawing boards to become the “Gravesend Ship Canal.”
Here’s the launch beach just west of Kaiser Park near the “mouth” of the creek. And on the beautiful sand . . . is that the shell of a newly-discovered species of sixth boro terrapin?
Au contraire, it’s our mighty vessel, Marie’s self-built and decorated T & C Taxi. Another one of her beauties was featured in this post from January 2010.
The yellow submarine is just one of the wrecks, maybe the only identifiable one.
With the tide farther out, its research sub design is more evident.
As we head up the Creek, the landmark Parachute Jump shows how near the beach is.
These wooden barges and scows are less identifiable than
fairly recent power boats, which even had registration numbers on the bow. In the morning light, the reflected red is pretty, as is
the green on the underside of the 17th Street bridge; the paint job which seems unfinished, given all the equipment around.
We paddle farther upcreek, here under the Stillwell Avenue bridge.
We pass under the D train and a little farther past
dove farms screened off from Shell road by vines.
On the opposite side of the creek near the Belt, egrets, cranes and gulls congregate.
People manage to maintain private resorts or at least arbors to sip morning coffee in silence with the birds and the Creek.
This is the end. From top to bottom here, the F train, the Belt, and Shell Road. And from beneath that wall, water bubbled to its own surface along with … stuff.
On the return trip, we spoke with the painting crew, who seemed quite shocked to see us.
A whole industry of crab farming happens on this improvised dock made of remains of a scow.
A swan family blend into (tries to maybe) its surroundings.
And before we return to our beach, we wonder about the identity of this wooden vessel,
this tug, and
whatever this vessel was.
If anyone knows how to discover the identity of these wrecks, please get in touch. I wonder if any mermaids–so prolific on the south side of Coney Island–ever make it up here.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Guess the creek? From what continent rich does it flow? What mysteries lie upstream?
Bird life is certainly rich, perched on some exotic geographical
forms.
And who manages these rich fields of grass (spartina coneyii)? Where are the farmers, possibly watching with eyes masked by foliage?
Dancing birds.
Crabs were copious, and swimming blissfully in the act of making themselves more copious. Count them here.
Rare geological formations, crater lakes with caverns and
caves.
Odd relics . . . could they have religious significance? Might this be an outpost of the Nacirema?
Like this quadrant . . . surely the Nacirema would direct their lives using such devices.
Behold the intrepid explorers and their vessel. Might this be another Tide and Current Taxi project? Doubleclick enlarges all fotos: What is that blueish stringy structure below off to the right, just above the stern of the boat?
More expedition fotos in tomorrow’s post.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Before these views of the bridge at Bayonne, two quick reminders: 1) the drum calls to the big parade less than a handful days away, and 2) the voting for caption contest #2 takes just a few seconds. Do it, please.
A half year ago, you saw views of Outerbridge; what unifies these fotos is the most beautiful bridge over the sixth boro that now threatens to stifle the sixth boro as well as the other five. When the Bayonne opened in 1931, it set the mark as the longest steel arch bridge in the world. Similarly, the foto below (looking to the southwest from central Brookln, over Red Hook, and toward the Bayonne) was taken from 44 Court Street in Brooklyn, which in 1901 was the tallest building in Brooklyn. Certainly, it’s a most enviable view of the sixth boro I’ve seen in a while.
I have a request at the end of this post.
Supply vessel Sorensen Miller distances itself from the Bridge on a foggy May day.
Falcon leaves it behind as it enters the Buttermilk Channel.
Shannon Dann heads farther southwest of it.
Patriot Service pushes a fuel barge toward it for refill.
Scott Turecamo, locked 60 feet into the notch of fuel barge New Hampshire, uses its 5100 hp to drive the unit toward the Bridge. To the left is Cape Cod, which first appeared here two and a half years ago.
A light and curvaceous Timothy L. Reinauer steams toward the yard on this side of the Bridge.
Help me out here: an unidentified tug (a Great Lakes Dredge & Dock boat?) pushes a scow (with Boston registry?) toward the KVK beyond the Bridge. Foto taken in 2008.
From the same Elizabeth (NJ) perspective, unidentified tug and tanker collaborate so that one may head for sea.
Bayonne, the Bridge too low for the future . . . what will it look like in 10 years?
My request: send me your views of the Bayonne Bridge, the more unusual, the better. I’m proudest of the second shot above, as the tower of 44 Court is a special place. Send me your unusual shots and we’ll reprise this topic.
All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.
Unrelated but very notable: Check out this memorial post for the first CGC Escanaba, which made the supreme sacrifice 67 years ago last weekend.
How I long to return to the graveyard: not the words of a misanthrope or exhausted vampire at all. See frogma’s gallery here. She has both graveyard and lifeyard pics of ships, as well as one of tugster afloat.
But for now, this is the final weekend to see Polybe + Seats production of A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things performed at the Waterfront Museum and Show Boat Barge, a sixth boro treasure featured numerous times before sometimes referred to as Lehigh Valley 79.
Final weekend for the play: see a full review of the play here from the Brooklyn Rail.
For my part: I bought a pair of tickets because I was intrigued by the following mixture: the real-life setting of Weeki Wachee Springs State Park (WWSSP) and
its struggle to remain financially viable as a roadside attraction featuring mermaids (Click here to see the real WWSSP mermaid roster.), and
spacey electronic music and wild costuming inside the exquisite barge built in 1914, and
the rich language of Samuel Taylor Coleridge “Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony.
The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie; And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I.” along with a smattering of Herman Melville, Rachel Carson, and Henrik Ibsen‘s Lady from the Sea, and
creative staging using objet-trouves of the very material that makes up the North Pacific gyre as studied by Charles J. Moore‘s Algalita Marine Research Foundation, and a crazed solitaire traveling on an iceberg named Jake, and
superb dancing and line delivery, and
what more can I say about the performance other than that it mesmerized me with 90 minutes of magic! See a trailer and buy tickets here.
And after it was over, I got a glimpse of Rich Samuelson’s show called “Tugboats and Waterfront Scenes.” Artist’s reception is on the barge Saturday, May 22 from 3 til 7.
And it’s all in Red Hook, historic port of yore. And if you can linger near the barge, go across the street to
Sunny’s Bar and relax. Believe it or not . . . a cobblestone street in NYC where grass grows between the stones!
And remember . . . the mermaids of Coney Island will come ashore and parade in just over six weeks. You know who you are . . . keep that Saturday free.
All fotos, Will Van Dorp . . . who needs to learn to take better indoor shots without a flash. :[
Here’s a previous post showing the interior of Lehigh 79.
Unrelated: Here’s the info for Working Harbor Committee‘s first tour.
I first saw Rae before she was Rae, when she was red and called Miss Bonnie. Scroll through here.
Rae is approaching 60 years, two years shy of it. And she’s not a behemoth: 46′ x 15′ x 5 with (at one time at least) 450 hp. Rae hails originally from Texas, not far from the Louisiana border.
In the confines of at the mouth of Gowanus Canal, Rae might be the perfect tool. Some jobs call for dental picks and others for crowbars.
Whoa!!! And then sometimes small can do impressive work moving crushed rock! And does it only look like Loujiane, the cement ship is assist vessel? For other fotos on that ship, see here.
All fotos thanks to Jed, for whose work I am grateful.
This recalls the summer of 2005, though, when a smaller tugboat–Rachel Marie at 43′ x 16′ x 5′ — towed an artificial continent (based on drawings by Robert Smithson) round and round the sixth boro. See tugster fotos here. Has anyone seen Rachel Marie recently?
As to artificial continents, someone’s new vision for Governors Island-makeover includes hills and according to this article, canyons with vistas.
Unrelated: Here’s a 2.5 minute audio slideshow for an article in the 4/19 New Yorker magazine, a story of a family towing life written by Burkhard Bilger.
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