Circum Staten Island 2

In the numismatic world, “pristine” means “never cleaned.”   This captures something about the beauty of the “inner coast” aka “the Kills.”  As industry moved there, particularly, petroleum, which–like it or not–is the life blood of our world culture, the Kills have served as a laboratory in which human environmental modification and nature’s reaction have struggled in a dance of action v. reaction.  Click on the fotos to enlarge them.  I admit I can’t identify a lot of this debris, so please help me out and I’ll revise this post as we go.

Between Shooter’s Island and Mariner’s Harbor lie these remnants of  . . . paddlewheels and ship’s boiler.  Osprey have recognized the strategic value of the boiler as a nesting platform and moved in.  Anyone know the paddlewheel story?

Here’s a view of the second paddlewheel.

Farther down by Rossville rests retired Army tug Bloxom (1944), which I wrote about last year.  Amazing to me is that tugs of this same era–and older–still work.

A little farther south are two unidentified wooden tugs.  Anyone know them?

In the same Witte yard, here’s another wood-hulled tug.

This interesting steel hull–on the bank off Charleston (Staten Island)–seems to have been a smaller ferry.  Anyone?

In the same collection of decrepit wrecks, notice the nest (osprey?) on the stem bitt of the vessel to the left.

More interplay of decaying machinery and nature, here with a car joining in.

Also off Charleston, and in this case, a meadow forms on the erstwhile deck.

I hope to get back here soon.  More Circum Staten Island fotos next time.  For now check out fotos of Shaun O’Boyle, opacity, and –of course–the intrepid Miru Kim.

All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.