Circum Staten Island 2b

Take 2 . . or 2b, and there’ll be more attempts to figure out the ghosts of the sixth boro.   Like others of you, I’m fascinated by these hints of a disappeared world.  Below, if I’ve understood correctly, lie the remnants of the ferry Astoria.  I wonder who worked on it  and how many thousands of folks rode it regularly either to work or play or  . . . do mischief.   For info on Astoria, which ran between Astoria in Queens to 92nd Street in Manhattan from the 1920s until the 1970s, read here.

Here is the ferry Major General William H. Hart aka SS Meow Man, so dubbed by a graffiti flinger.  General Hart worked at Brooklyn Army Depot after World War 1.  Like Astoria, she was built in the mid-1920s and ran until almost 1970, when it did a short stint at South Street Seaport.  See more info here.

Here’s another view of the tug I posted on previously.  In September 1944, Berger Boat in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, launched this vessel was as Navy rescue tug ATR-89,  After the war, it worked as Hila.  Now the metal deck and wooden hull turn back into raw materials.  Again, I see it and try to imagine crew:  who they were, where they came from and went to, and what they or their descendants would think if they saw it today.

I’ve heard this is a ferry that previously ran between Newburgh and Beacon. Anyone confirm this?

I’ve no idea what vessel this once was.  Anyone help?

Nor this, although this vessel lies 50+ miles upriver in Cornwall.  It seems to have evolved into a breakwater protecting the town marina.

In this closer-up shot, you can see the portside hawse.

In Kill van Kull, this “retired” car ferry called Pvt Nicholas Minue is named for a World War II Medal of Honor winner.

Let me end this on a non-wreck.  Many of the vessels in this post once were ferries. Anyone know this ferry?  Those are the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges in the distance.

Here’s the same vessel seen in profile rather than stern on.  It’s Michael Cosgrove, a mini-ferry I’ve not seen before this year.  See the link here for more–not much–on Michael Cosgrove and the other Staten Island ferries.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.