Fruits of Preservation

Once these were wooden barges, which

were towed around the harbor with a wide range of cargoes.  In the foreground … disintegrating … is one a tug that once could have done the towing, now unidentifiable and impotent.

The sixth boro has many such tugs and barges, although given the efficient advance of decrepitude, fewer each season.

Once there was even a sixth boro barge called Periwinkle, no doubt painted in that color, a popular nightspot.

Here’s another barge called Driftwood, whose paint scheme and additional storage transformed a coffee (or whatever else commodity)  transporter into an off-off-Broadway-even-off-the-island entertainment palace.  Only stories remain and can be told by David Sharps, who

created the Waterfront Museum out of a wooden barge he literally dug and pumped out of the Hudson River mud, saving it from the fate of those barges above.    The two fotos above come courtesy of David Sharps.   Now the barge, the 1914 Lehigh Valley 79 tours with 1907 tug Pegasus, and other

vessels like the 1901 Urger, featured in many posts on this blog, help us visualize what those ruins in the top fotos once looked like and serve as places of entertainment even today.   Here’s one set of fotos of Urger high, dry, but cold.

Anyhow, with five minutes of your time, you can help  LV-79 and Pegasus collect a $250,000 grant for ongoing repairs.  Just click here–AND each day until May 21 on the icon upper left side of this blog to vote.  Partners in Preservation has chosen to award $$ by grant applicants demonstrated ability to use social media.  So please vote . . . and ask a handful of your friends to do so as well . . . .

Unless otherwise attributed, all fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Preservation on Two Continents

Since I woke up this May morning from a dream about attending a meditation session, the logical choice is to start my day writing a post that reflects upon–well–preservation.  Two weeks ago I wrote about the Alwyn Vincent project.  To quote the site, “she’s finally out,” and on the steel wheels ‘n rails of a synchrolift.

She was getting her “haircut and a shave” even before she stopped moving.  When all logistical arrangements converge, the late 1950s tug will travel over-the-road 60 or so miles to its new life, as a functioning steam tug on a freshwater reservoir.

To support the self-described  ’Bunch of Crazy Farmers’ (personified by Andy, in orange below) who now own the tug, the Alwyn website says they “selling space for banners of about 1 metre square, at R5 000 ($US 639.30). The advertisements are mostly in connection with agricultural products and services, partly because everybody knows who are responsible for saving this historic vessel! Partly also, it’s because those are the firms we know, support and can ask!”

I suppose they’d accept US sponsors as well;  book your space on the hull! Contact Elma on dvijoeningwerke@telkomsa.net

Which brings me to South Street Seaport, and this sight that greeted me two days ago.   After at least 20 years of deterioration, work is happening.

Spongy wood was being removed, and

I got my first ever look inside, after 10 years of wondering . . . .

Jim and Glen peeled away tired materials from the 1980s.

Installed inside the windows years ago was this captioning that

told some of the story.  A sister vessel–New York Central #16–was saved only to end tragically at the Bourne Bridge rotary in Massachusetts, just six years ago.

The late Don Sutherland told of spending the last night aboard #16 . . .  I wish I’d recorded his telling that story. I have recorded Norman Brouwer telling the story of buying this pierside house from #16 from the late John J. Witte, and I hope to share details of that project soon.

Not everything can be preserved . . .  On Friday I caught Cheyenne –a current Witte (officially DonJon Marine) tug–heading from the East River into the Upper Bay pushing a load of (I believe) fine scrap, chopped up pieces bound for recycling.  Just a week ago, Cheyenne was pushing some  preserved vintage jets.

Some valuable artifacts might not be saved much longer unless dreams convert into reality and $$;  others like Liemba and Yavari seem to live way beyond their expected lifespans in spite of their being out of the spotlight.

Which brings up this part of a dream:  Partners in Preservation is dangling cash  $US 3 million, and  . . .<<<Tug Pegasus (1907) and Waterfront Museum Barge aka Lehigh Valley 79 (1914)  have teamed up in a grant application for $$ for preservation work each vessel needs.  As a component of the decision-making about who gets the $$, Partners in Preservation have a “socialmedia-meter” running from now until May 21.  To help Pegasus and Lehigh Valley 79 register high on this “meter,” you can do two things from wherever on the planet you may be:  1)  befriend them on Facebook and get dozens of your friends to befriend them as well, and 2)   vote DAILY here.    DAILY!  Seems like a crazy way to run an election, but  . . . that’s social media and in this case, the cause is worthy.>>>

And later this afternoon–1300–1700h  I’ll be down on Pier 25 minding the plank between 79 and Pegasus, as part of Partners in Preservation “open house” weekend.

Thanks to Colin Syndercombe for the Cape Town fotos;  all others by Will Van Dorp.

Sort of related, here’s a “tale of two projects” post from about a year ago.

Figureheads Past, Present, and Future

This isn’t the first tugster post with a single foto . . .  and I’m not going to research among the 1762 previous posts how many more there’ve been.

Here and here are two previous figureheads posts,  and come later this month, I expect another such post.  Here’s a first image that would NEVER pass muster as a figurehead concept.

And here’s a question . . . can you identify the vessel that follows wherever this sea bull leads?

That’s it.  Answer identifying the figurehead may be tomorrow.

Don’t forget to make your daily “partners in preservation” vote.  Click on the image of the “rapid-aging-software-altered foto of tugster below, register, scroll thru to find “Tug Pegasus and Waterfront Museum Barge,”  and vote once a day through May 21.  Ask your friends to vote too.

And this software says this is what I’ll look like in 10 years!!!!  yikes.

Traffic Over the Sixth Boro

This foto shortchanges both Porto–container vessel at Howland Hook–and whatever aircraft flies above it.  Which aircraft . . . you may wonder?

This one!!  Or these ones.

Astride the Boeing’s shoulders is OV-101, the engineless shuttle that never entered space, escorted

by a T-38 chase plane.

They checked out the Bayonne Bridge and

scoped out progress on the still second-tallest building in Manhattan,

as closeup as they could . . .

and flew over Newark Liberty International before landing at Kennedy.  The foto below is a clue to my special platform for these shots . . . to be revealed tomorrow.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Check out John Skelson’s fotos here.  And great landing fotos here by John Huntington.  Still more here by Mai Armstrong.

Ultimately,Enterprise will be barged upriver and be preserved as part of the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum.  To make room for OV-101, the museum has sent three aircraft upriver, literally: MiG-15, a Douglas F-3D Skyknight, and a Supermarine Scimitar.  To see them barging upriver to ESAM, be at the Waterford Flight of Five tomorrow.

And on the subject of preservation, a request . . . tug Pegasus and Lehigh Valley 79 need your vote to demonstrate the power of social media and, thereby, win a grant.  Vote DAILY!!

Click on the logo below, register, scroll thru to find “Tug Pegasus and Waterfront Museum Barge,”  and vote once a day through May 21.  Ask your friends to vote too.